Do Men Suffer As Much

[somanymistakes]

I don't understand why some people get involved with men at all if they have such low opinions of them.

 

Yes, I absolutely know there are horrible men out there. I have read forums where some guys talk quite callously about picking up women to use, or even forums about affairs where some guys trade tips on how to get all the sex and avoid the consequences.

 

But it isn't all men. Look in other places and you'll find men heartbroken and tormented. In my experience of relationships that aren't affairs, it's generally been men who handle the breakup much worse. However, they don't want to talk about it as openly because of the whole stereotypes about how men are supposed to hide their feelings. Women cry into their icecream and then get over it, men withdraw and obsess and feel worthless and sometimes quietly drive over cliffs.

 

The biggest problem is that when talking about affairs, especially with serial cheaters, you're pre-filtering to make it much more likely that you're dealing with the kind of man who can shut off his feelings and not care about hurting his wife - or you.

[Whoknew30]

Listen, I suspect that most mm care for the ow/mw on some lvl. I agree with the idea that no matter the gender it can be painful to end.

 

However.......Men are simply wired differently and tend to get into relationship outside of the primary one for one particular reason...Most often sex, but sometimes shots of ego boosting. Rarely is it emotional. So in general, no men don't struggle as much with affairs ending because they no get as emotionally attached.

 

Unless youveyhad an A, how can you know? I've personally spoke to many men that truly cared for their OW but wouldn't leave their wives due to cultural, financial reasons & the kids.

 

Yes, men can be & are sometimes more emotional than women but they don't talk about it freely with other men. I've had so many conversations with my cousins, my husband's friends & my own guy friends, they tell me more than they do each other bc I'm a woman & bc of my degree. There's many things men NEVER would repeat to each other. So of course as a man you've only heard from other men "it was just for sex" bc typically men don't get too deep with each other.

[elaine567]

The biggest problem is that when talking about affairs, especially with serial cheaters, you're pre-filtering to make it much more likely that you're dealing with the kind of man who can shut off his feelings and not care about hurting his wife - or you.

 

Yes, excellent point.

There is a subset of men who have affairs.

So when we talk about a MM we mean one of that group and not men in general.

A man in an affair is therefore often an man who does "care so little", who is very good at compartmentalising, who is quite happy lying as long as he gets what he wants, who will say anything to keep his little "harem" going, who is only in it for the sex, who will move on unscathed leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, who only cares for himself, who is very happy being "da man" with two (or more) besotted women in tow, who swiftly acquires another OW, when this one won't play ball, who is all talk and no action.... etc.etc.

We "meet" them everyday on here, through the anguish of their OWs and the desperation of their BSs.

[esperanzado]

For some people, depending on their emotional attachment style, this kind of reaction isn't uncommon. You're mourning an unresolved death of your attachment. If you'd had none, then there would be none to mourn or resolve. Since the relationship was never complete, if you are normally a monogamous person, you're resolving the end of a relationship which was outside your usual style and experience, both with the relationship and the manner in which it ended

 

Sure, and one thing I noticed is that unresolved attachments when young were much harder to resolve than those as I grew older. Life experience provided tools. At a young age, NC, long before the internet and the phrase was widely known, helped a lot but still was not a complete resolution. Ultimate resolution would come from being married and getting therapy, along with the usual lessons of life. Now MW's are what they are; a few women of billions. Unremarkable. No more pedestals. Sure, normal. Guys can feel that way too but most don't get substantially attached to affair partners because, in general, men don't get as easily attached and are more circumspect about deals that aren't their primary, real or prospective, relationship. Yep, old adage of whoever cares the least has the most power and control. As a man, I'm used to pursuing *any* woman, whether that was single women or married women or women in LTR's. They never came to me. Do nothing, get nothing. Overt action was necessary. If that doesn't mirror your experience, then your pursuit of the person was outside your normal experience and also IMO contributes to the difficulty with resolving this.

 

In the case of my youngest and most long lived interaction increase your time factor by a magnitude and you'll have my sample time. Think a generation. I can chuckle about it now but talk about an enormous waste of life. I'd opine there were others related to that pedestal thing but that's another issue and thread.

 

Good luck with your healing!

 

This means a lot to me. Thanks for taking the time, and for your caring.

[DKT3]

Unless youveyhad an A, how can you know? I've personally spoke to many men that truly cared for their OW but wouldn't leave their wives due to cultural, financial reasons & the kids.

 

Yes, men can be & are sometimes more emotional than women but they don't talk about it freely with other men. I've had so many conversations with my cousins, my husband's friends & my own guy friends, they tell me more than they do each other bc I'm a woman & bc of my degree. There's many things men NEVER would repeat to each other. So of course as a man you've only heard from other men "it was just for sex" bc typically men don't get too deep with each other.

 

Well I am a man, I've had thousands of conversations with men, the kinds of conversations women usually don't hear. Bottom line is very very few women would be interested in an extra marital affair if they knew the guys true intentions most of the time. If they knew the true nature of his primary relationship. So they lie, they lie to get what they want. The main way they lie is overstating the emotional investment. Sadly, it's not isolated to affairs, and can extend into normal relationships...This is successful for some because too many women hang on words and make excuses when actions don't match.

 

I'm really confused by you for many reason...One is I believe you transfer your desire to have this deep love for you AP and him you ( even though you claim to be happily married) onto all affairs. Most are simply one using the other for whatever reason.

[cloche]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

Edited February 2, 2017 by cloche

[Chica80]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

 

(((((CLOCHE))))))) this is beautiful.....

[Whoknew30]

Well I am a man, I've had thousands of conversations with men, the kinds of conversations women usually don't hear. Bottom line is very very few women would be interested in an extra marital affair if they knew the guys true intentions most of the time. If they knew the true nature of his primary relationship. So they lie, they lie to get what they want. The main way they lie is overstating the emotional investment. Sadly, it's not isolated to affairs, and can extend into normal relationships...This is successful for some because too many women hang on words and make excuses when actions don't match.

 

I'm really confused by you for many reason...One is I believe you transfer your desire to have this deep love for you AP and him you ( even though you claim to be happily married) onto all affairs. Most are simply one using the other for whatever reason.

 

Once again, you as a man had conversations with other men...read up on it. Statistically men do not open up emotionally to other men as much as women do to each other. Personal experience alone, I've seen men bash a woman & say they could care a less & then asking me how to get her back...I'd be rich if I got payed for every conversation I've been in like that.

 

It's a little ironic to me, that if one hasn't personally had an A & or even knows why his BS did, knows so much about them.

 

I am happily married...& unlike your situation...I told my H exactly why I had an A. My AP I'll always care for bc he didn't lie to me & he thought we were going to have a life together...I hurt him & I'll forever feel bad about it. I've had an A that wasn't based on just sex & I wasn't using him & he wasn't using me. We genuinely cared about each other. Even after DDAY, he was willing to face it all with me, he didn't run & that's when I went NC & hurt him.

 

 

OP...I was the one that left AP, like what you're going through & I till this day care about him & hope for him the best & he feels the same. He did get married & we both have moved on but special place for each other will always be there. That's why I say, it may not be a matter of actual love but him doing the right thing by his family unit, all together...as you should do the right thing for yourself.

[Whoknew30]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

 

May I ask you a question...did you as a man speak freely about your emotions to all your other male friends? Curious

[awkward]

It's a little ironic to me, that if one hasn't personally had an A & or even knows why his BS did, knows so much about them.

 

 

IMO one doesn't have to have participated in something to have knowledge about it.

 

 

Anyways unless I'm mistaken, he did have an EA.

[awkward]

I think counseling would help you move on from this relationship. You have to be willing to let go before you can heal. You need to let go for yourself.

[Girlfromcali]

I haven't read responses but will answer the original question.

 

My MM after the A was done, immediately stopped doing his hobby that was his passion, after four months physically looked like a different person. When I talked to him (after five month break up) he said nothing interests him anymore, and that he used to wake up every morning excited, and now nothing excites him anymore, he's been doing drugs etc.

(He never said why so I have no idea the reasoning behind this).

 

Then we kind of dabbled back in to the A (never fully because I knew it deep down it was over but couldn't get rid of addiction). MM seemed to be doing better, changed back to his old self.

We were never really in the A, but sometimes had "relapses". In my mind I thought we could be friends.

He wanted to see me, I never agreed to it.

At some point, over a year after we broke up, I asked if he ever had another A. He said no, and that he wishes it never had happened, and that he was happier before.

 

Anyway, the last time I talked to him (a month ago) he said he was depressed and nothing interests him anymore. (Again, don't know why because he doesn't tell me why).

 

I now know we can't be friends. I am now almost NC, meaning I don't talk to him, nor have interest in talking to him.

 

I know he suffers but I don't know the reason.

[Girlfromcali]

So I did go back and remembered one thing.

 

I did ask him one point, way after the A had ended and we'd been NC for months but I still thought about him constantly. (I still do every day). So I asked him "do you have days when you don't think about me?"

He said that he'd be lying if he said he thought about me every day. He didn't say that to be mean, he's just not very his-honest person.

[amaysngrace]

It's like that song....

 

[HadMeOverABarrel]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why....cloche

 

Brilliant, beautiful, inspiring, touching, lovely. Thank you for sharing this!

 

BTW, just last night a friend of mine related a story about a single guy who she connected well with for a couple weeks before he ghosted her (they're both in their 50's). She was feeling stuck, and her therapist (same as mine) told her to pick her own ending. She said it was one of the most brilliant things therapist told her, and that it helped her have peace about it at last. Now, after reading your post, I know it has a name...Occam's Razor.

[Poppy47]

I picked my own ending.

 

I picked my own time. It was after quite a few happy peaceful weeks. There weren't many of those during the Affair. It suddenly felt right.

 

xMM was shocked. I didn't let that bother me. He had 8 years of the best of two worlds.

 

It was, for me, a brilliant way to end the A... no argument or blame. It was just ENOUGH. I wasn't giving anymore.

 

XMM could do nothing because he wasn't willing to give any more either.

 

Poppy.

[HadMeOverABarrel]

I picked my own ending.

 

I picked my own time. It was after quite a few happy peaceful weeks. There weren't many of those during the Affair. It suddenly felt right.

 

xMM was shocked. I didn't let that bother me. He had 8 years of the best of two worlds.

 

It was, for me, a brilliant way to end the A... no argument or blame. It was just ENOUGH. I wasn't giving anymore.

 

XMM could do nothing because he wasn't willing to give any more either.

 

Poppy.

 

Yep! I have exactly these sentiments...it was really tough to not lash out for a couple months, but now I look back and am proud of myself that I walked away with as much dignity as one could possibly muster after being involved in any type of A. Nice feeling that I'm the one that went NC and slipped up just once with one text message just before Thanksgiving. I ask myself if I regret that text, but now just see it as the punctuated confirmation of all that I despised during the A--lots of effort from me while little to none from him.

 

Proud that I am the one who made the decision to end it. Proud of myself that I didn't grovel when ending it or after. Proud of myself that I didn't start any drama with BS. Proud that I didn't contact him and tell him where he could go (hot, fiery place). Using restraint on some of these things was really, really difficult. I was so hurt and angry. Now I see that engaging in those behaviors invests oneself further into the muck making it more difficult to heal and move on.

 

Thanks for the inspiration, Poppy! I liked your comment about not feeling bad bc he had all those years of cake and eating it, too. I'm getting to the point that I'm beginning to feel compassion for xMM--not because I feel sorry for him, but I'm just at the very beginning of feeling like he can't do better (find a better way to deal with whatever is in him that makes him want to have A's) and that is his own shortcoming. So, hooray, maybe I'm almost healed! Wishing peace and healing to all those regardless where we are in our journeys!

Edited February 3, 2017 by HadMeOverABarrel

[freengreen]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

Give this man a medal.

[cloche]

May I ask you a question...did you as a man speak freely about your emotions to all your other male friends? Curious

 

During the affair: no, with the notable exception of my closest friend and his wife, both of whom knew her.

Since the affair: yes.

Edited February 3, 2017 by cloche

[Onlywhenitrains]

I spent a lot of time thinking about how he felt after each of our break-ups, and the final one, especially. Cried all the tears I had in me thinking about answers about what he thinks, feels...and how easy it seemed for him to walk away from us. Waste of time thinking about it.

 

It wasn't until I started to care about myself that those questions finally started to fade away.

 

Now, it doesn't matter anymore to me what/how he feels.

 

Although still not easy and completely free of loneliness and sometimes longing for him, my life has peace and content with myself in it. Regardless of how lonely I feel ...more often than I'd want to, it's my life. It's peaceful and calm. And, I love it. It may not look like much to some, but it's mine.

[Poppy47]

I spent a lot of time thinking about how he felt after each of our break-ups, and the final one, especially. Cried all the tears I had in me thinking about answers about what he thinks, feels...and how easy it seemed for him to walk away from us. Waste of time thinking about it.

 

It wasn't until I started to care about myself that those questions finally started to fade away.

 

Now, it doesn't matter anymore to me what/how he feels.

 

Although still not easy and completely free of loneliness and sometimes longing for him, my life has peace and content with myself in it. Regardless of how lonely I feel ...more often than I'd want to, it's my life. It's peaceful and calm. And, I love it. It may not look like much to some, but it's mine.

Rain I am so pleased to read your post. I think you have found yourself again.

 

That's what we all must do. If we do not, the MM or the OM will continue to rule our thoughts and actions and emotions.

 

It needs a long critical look at how many times your feelings were not considered at all. When we can be this objective, we are ready to let go.

 

I am also content with my peace and quiet. I have reflected and really understood what got me into the A and kept me there. The person I am now is not the same as the person 8 years ago . It took time for sure but worth it.

 

I feel men, like women, come in all varieties. Some are more sensitive and get emotionally involved. They are the ones who will hurt at the end of the A.

 

Poppy.

[Whoknew30]

IMO one doesn't have to have participated in something to have knowledge about it.

 

 

Anyways unless I'm mistaken, he did have an EA.

 

One can know about something but never truly 100% understand a situation unless going through it first person. Like oncologists obviously know about cancer but that doesn't mean they know about the personal emotions of someone that has it.

[Overtaxed]

Well I am a man, I've had thousands of conversations with men, the kinds of conversations women usually don't hear. Bottom line is very very few women would be interested in an extra marital affair if they knew the guys true intentions most of the time. If they knew the true nature of his primary relationship. So they lie, they lie to get what they want. The main way they lie is overstating the emotional investment. Sadly, it's not isolated to affairs, and can extend into normal relationships...This is successful for some because too many women hang on words and make excuses when actions don't match.

 

I'm really confused by you for many reason...One is I believe you transfer your desire to have this deep love for you AP and him you ( even though you claim to be happily married) onto all affairs. Most are simply one using the other for whatever reason.

 

^^ This ^^

 

I work in a high stress, high income, almost all male, and almost all younger (<50 years old) environment. We also travel a LOT for business and spend a lot of time at meals together. Women, let me tell you something. You'd never get into an A if you could hear the conversations men have about you. I have a buddy who shows me pictures of his A partners on his phone (typically in the act) and then describes, in detail, how he's trying to get her to do some sexual act that his wife won't do. Other friends who openly compare their wives to their APs, and, frankly, except for sex, the wife is usually revered about the AP in all areas. I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of serial cheating men out there and a lot fewer serial cheating women, because, otherwise, everyone is cheating given the number of women friends have laid down with over the years while they AND their other partner were married.

 

Men who do this are praying on you. They probably picked up some books on "game" and are using it to twist you around. They are going to keep pressing you for more and more extreme sex acts because that's what their wives won't do and what they really want. Sure, they'll talk to you about the future, and all the ways things will be better "when you get together", but it's just talk. As soon as the A is exposed, they will retreat, probably never to reappear.

 

As a BS, I'm probably not in the best situation to comment on this, but, I did have a lot of experience with women before I got married, so I'm going to draw on that. Most of the time; men really are just interested in sex, even in a "normal" relationship. In an A? I'd suspect that number climbs into the high 90 percentile range, especially if you're both married. They are after sex, and they will say anything to get it. I really do recommend some women pick up a book or 2 on "Game" and compare the advice in that book to what you hear from your AP. I suspect, in many cases, it'll start to sound like a script. I know my wife's AP's "lines" were so obviously game that I think I might know what book he read.

 

It's a joke; wake up and realize what's happening. If you can't do that, tell him "no sex until you break up with your wife" and see what happens. Some HUGE percentage of cheaters will move on to an easier target; they aren't going to break it off to be with you; it's all talk, and you need to realize that some men (and women, I'm sure) have NO reservations about saying anything to get into your pants.

[Serendipity55]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

 

Beautifully written and very wise words. Thank you.

[deadsoul]

I think I may be able to relate to what you are experiencing, Esperanzado. I too have been stuck, and only now am beginning to understand why.

 

While I don't disagree with what others here are saying - Poppy: "So What", AileD: "don't waste your energy", Scarlet: "you are hanging on to nothing", Eye: "Let go. Heal. Move on.", for me, these observations somehow miss the mark. Yes, this is what we must do, but they leave us no clearer as to how to actually go about doing so.

 

As a single AP who went 'all in' - sincerely seeking to build a future with the married AP with whom I was deeply in love - very different forces were at play for the two of us, and in a way that I did not fully grasp at the time. Though we each viewed the other as a 'soul mate', I think this actually meant very different things to the two of us. It's almost as if we were both actors, each faithfully following our own script, yet completely unaware that we were participating in two totally different plays. Perhaps this particular dynamic is unique to the 'single+married long term romantic affair'? Either way, advice directed at the participants of other kinds of affairs, or at the married AP of this same kind of affair, while valid, may be slightly less useful to us. Carhill's observations are spot on though, as always.

 

I eventually worked out that her actions were inconsistent with her words, and finally summoned the courage to walk away. Even so, the ending was somewhat ambiguous: no final conversation; no closure. My guess is that to this day she mistakenly imagines I simply lost interest in her - fell out of love - and dumped her; this would conveniently allow her to view herself as a victim - an established pattern of hers - and so avoid acknowledging the full extent to which she intentionally mislead both her husband and I.

 

My point is that what the affair meant to me - a sincere, though misguided, shot at a legitimate future with the only woman I have ever truly loved - and how it ended - ambiguously - affects how I now process its collapse.

 

Here's what I've come with up:

 

1. Lack of Closure

 

I still have a number of lingering questions: why did he tolerate our affair? how close did they really come to separating? of the things she told me, what was not strictly true? is she aware of how she mislead me, and if so, does she regret it? and so on….

 

I care because the answers affect how I now view myself, and how I understand my role within the triangle.

 

I'll never learn the real answers to these questions, and knowing this has driven me bonkers; turning the same old questions over and over again in my head has contributed, in no small part, to my ongoing depression. I need to find a way to break out of this cycle. So, in the spirit of Occam's Razor, I've come up with something: I might as well simply pick my own answers to these questions - answers chosen from amongst the set of seemingly reasonable and mutually consistent candidates that fit with the few facts I actually know with certainty, but that otherwise serve my own best interests and portray myself in the best possible - well, least negative, at any rate - light. Or at least leave me with a 'truth' I can live with. Ingenious, huh? I mean, given that I'll never be contradicted, I might as well, right?

 

Create my own closure, in other words.

 

2. Loneliness and Lack of Joy

 

Ending a long term affair forces one to confront what was missing in one's life prior to the affair. What needs did you hope it would meet?

 

I was extraordinarily invested in the affair - foolishly so - to the point where my own little world steadily shrank smaller and smaller. If we could just be together, I rationalized, all would be rainbows and unicorns. Fog logic, of course. In my mind, my future happiness hinged crucially upon being with her properly, which distracted me from attending to those aspects of my own life as an individual that I did not want to look at. For me, this includes a growing sense of loneliness, of isolation, my failure to create my own happiness and joy, and a deep, deep longing to once again be in the midst of the kind of warm and happy family I grew up in all those years ago back in London. The kind of family that I totally failed to recreate for myself with my own wife, and blah, blah, blah, …

 

Your own list will be quite different from mine, of course, but my point is that once the affair collapses and the fog clears, one is still stuck with these very same issues to deal with, though now - clearly - alone.

 

So what does one do?

 

Well, I'm still working that out, of course.

 

I'm back in therapy. I'm exercising. I've switched jobs and am earning a whole lot more money. I've started buying books on happiness, meditation, self-help, self-hypnosis - the very kind of books I might well have sneered at a few years ago. I'm making lists: of things that bring me joy, of times in my life that I was happy, and blah, blah etc.

 

I'm thinking about those positive aspects of my experience that I can separate from the affair itself and take forward with me: I learned, for example, that I do in fact have the strength to walk away from a bad situation despite it hurting like hell; that I can, as it turns out, inspire love and desire within a woman; and that there do exist people who get me for who I am; 50 years old, yet I'd never truly believed these things could be true.

 

And I'm working hard at reprogramming myself to not think about her. Because doing so is counter productive. Harmful, in fact.

 

In summary, a lack of closure and a failure to recognize the underlying loneliness and lack of joy in my life that led me to imagine that marrying her would be a panacea, are what have kept me stuck - and ruminating for the last 2 1/2 years over how she gypped me has turned out to be merely a distraction from facing these issues. A recipe for depression, in other words.

 

Warmly,

 

cloche

 

Your words hit me on so many levels. I just want to thank you for posting. You gave me a lot to think about and helped me make some big decisions. So thank you.