whichwayisup Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 Hehehe! Isn't just ME now who calls Owl, wise ol' Owl! *WWIU Runs and hides now as Owl prepares to do a fly-by swoop!*
Author lizad Posted March 23, 2006 Author Posted March 23, 2006 Hi there, I am actually doing really well.....At this point and I know that might not be the case tomorrow or sometime soon, I have NO desire to communicate with the OM. As a matter of fact, I was thinking this morning about a situation recently and it made me sick to my stomach having to do with him......... As far as my H.....we spend a lot of time together and we do enjoy a lot of the same things. that was the thing, at home I was fine, it was either after I got together with the OM or when he would just get over the top with us being together forever and such that I would get confused and have the problems........ having NC with him has always worked the best for me to re-establish myself at home so to speak....... I havent heard anything and I am thankful for that.........as far as the cell phone I will give it some time and hopefully not hear, then keeping the phone wont be a problem. I told you I closed my e-mail account so I def. wont be hearing via e-mail...... not sure if he is just giving me space to re-think and come back again but it makes no difference b/c I know where I want to be.... what happened with your situation owl????
Owl Posted March 23, 2006 Posted March 23, 2006 My story is a little different than the majority you'll see posted. My wife and I were married for about 17 years when 'it' happened. We'd both started playing online games, but she became severely addicted to them. She began playing 16+ hours/day, and this put a HUGE strain on our marriage. A lot of this had to do with her untreated depression as well. Long story short, she ended up involved in an online emotional affair with a man she met in game. I was very uncomfortable with this 'friendship', and finally realized that something was dangerously wrong when I caught her trying to close IM sessions so that I couldn't see what was in the window. I hacked her IM accounts and enabled logging...and it was several days later before I was able to access the logs. I found that they had gotten to the point where they were planning on meeting in person. This hurt INCREDIBLY. When I confronted her with the logs, OM immediately bought her plane tickets to go and live with him...and she was completely ready to do so, even though they had never met!! Again, cutting this down, she didn't go, and this began the end of the affair. NC wasn't established for another month and a half. We started MC (marriage counseling) and IC...and she decided to reconcile in about that same time frame. My story is posted over on the infidelity board here on LS...do a search for it and you'll find it. This was almost 2 years ago. We've recovered pretty well. I just wish I had been smart (WISE) enough to have helped HER to avoid getting into the affair... Hope this makes decent sense to you.
Author lizad Posted March 23, 2006 Author Posted March 23, 2006 of course it does Owl.......I have to say though that dont you think there is a difference between an emotional affair and a physical one??? I know the emotional is way more intense than just a fling however did the fact that your W never met or was intimate with the OM make a difference??? I say this because about 7 years ago......I went through a bad time......to make a long story quite short, I had been home raising my two children, my husbands hours were crazy and I had felt everything came before me......I tried to tell my H over and over again how unhappy I was and suggested marital counseling at the time and he wouldnt hear of it......he stuck his head in the sand and didnt want to "deal" with our issues. I got involved emotionally only for a very short few weeks with someone and I ended up telling my husband about it....I want him to know, I wanted him to realize that I was hurting.....it was only then that he realized how serious I was and things got better for a while but it was like a band-aid......we never really got to the bottom of things...... two years ago, I was in a much different place.......although obviously I had some deep issues I was still dealing with and b/c my husband doesn't want to know from anything.....I got away with my little fun but then of course it turned much deeper the A and more involved....... We did end up going for counseling and as I said before, then i went and worked out a lot of things........i just didnt know how to end the affair and I guess i was afraid to........ I am not affraid anymore and I dont want this in my life anymore and the walking away had been coming for a long time now. this is the first time however that I am walking away from it with a much more secure and good feeling about it......I think for me, it has been running it's course for some time now.......and oh the stress of it......like i had two husbands, actually the A "husband" was a lot worse.......lol I am so glad you were able to move on and make your marriage work.......i really believe I will be ok b/c my H really had no clue of anything or if at times he did, didnt want to admit it to himself......regardless of all of it, our marriage and communication and all is better than it has been in a long time......... again as far as coming clean........not so sure that knowing there was something physical would be ok with him
Owl Posted March 24, 2006 Posted March 24, 2006 Lizad- Well, I have to say that I personally feel that had it gone to a PA, it could have affected our recovery. As a matter of fact, the plane tickets that OM bought my wife were for a few days after d-day...they wanted to see what MY response to all of this would be and ensure that our kids were taken care of before she just flew away. During that time, I made it very clear to my wife that I was willing to work things out...but if she got on that plane, I knew that it would become physical, and I would NOT accept her back after that. And I made it clear that not only would I no longer be her husband, but I'd no longer be her friend as well. That there would never be ANY kind of contact between us again. Now, in reality I don't know for sure what really would have happened had she gone. I know that what I said was how I felt at the time...but I also know that you don't know anything for certain until you find yourself in that situation. You too have the concern that your H might not be willing to work things out with you if he knew that it was a PA. I can understand that. But, doesn't he deserve the chance to make that choice? While he may have been a jerk at various points of your marriage, doesn't he still have the right to decide whether or not he wants to remain in this marriage, given what's happened? If the tables were turned...you'd want to know the truth. And you would want to make your OWN choice in how things should go in your relationship after the affair. Just makes sense. Now, don't get me wrong...odds are he'll be mad as HECK about all of this. He may well decide to end the marriage. But honestly, that's as much his right in this as it would be yours. And it's ALSO possible that this could be a 'wake up call' for him...that he (like me) will realize that things need to change in your marriage for the two of you to continue together. But if you keep this hidden, there are two things you need to be aware of. One is that the guilt will drive you crazy. Keeping something like this a secret is HARD...VERY HARD. And dealing with your guilt, and all of the other emotions going on without his support will be VERY VERY TOUGH. Not to mention that it almost always comes out eventually. The odds are extremely high that he's going to learn about this some way, some day. You can either help with this by doing it now and making it clear that you're going to take ownership of trying to repair the damage to your marriage...or you can wait til he finds out and then simply try to weather the storm...and not be able to do anything to help FIX the problems. But it's up to you my friend. In my case, I KNOW it would have gone physical within hours of when they met. Her flying to live with him would have resulted it in happening the night she arrived...I know my wife very well. Had they met even in a 'nuetral' setting (like they were planning), it would have happened. So I had to deal with that as well.
Author lizad Posted March 24, 2006 Author Posted March 24, 2006 well owl, I hear you loud and clear.......and it's something to consider very seriously..... Putting the A aside for a moment here......the marriage has never been better if you can believe that......the way we deal with issues with our children, the way we communicate with one another..........I feel very good and confidant on the note. As far as the "guilt", I am not going to beat myself up for doing something that I should not have done. I actually think unloading my guilt to make myself feel better is pretty selfish even though I did something extremely selfish........ I think time heals all.......I am not saying that my H doesn;t deserve the right to make the choice about our marriage but again I am not so sure that is the route I want to take. Once something is said........no turning back....
Owl Posted March 24, 2006 Posted March 24, 2006 I think time heals all.... Nope. Time doesn't heal all. It's what you DO with that time that determines the healing. Take a good trauma wound. I'm ex-military...I've seen lots. If you sustain a serious wound to a solid muscle group (say a huge open wound to the upper biceps), you could either treat it or ignore it. Either way, time is the same. Ignoring it has one of two possible outcomes. If you're LUCKY, it won't further infect. But without treatment to repair the damaged tissue, you'll end up with a huge mass of scar tissue that will drastically limit the mobility of the limb...permanently handicapping the use of the limb for the rest of the patient's life. If you're not lucky, the wound will get dirty and infect...slowly spreading to other portions of the body and killing the patient with systemia. But...if you repair the muscle/tissue/blood flow damage to the wound, and treat it for infection, you'll end up with a patient who is alive, with the full use of the limb, and a much happier overall ending. Even the time to recovery will take far less in this scenario. But I know that I've made my point, and I won't push this any further for you. I do wish you well in this, and will pray for you and your marriage. Keep posting, and hang in there.
Author lizad Posted March 24, 2006 Author Posted March 24, 2006 thank you owl....we shall see where it goes and I have to say I feel so unbelievably good about my decision to walk away away from the OM....... I don't know where my thoughts will lead another day but then again they are just thoughts......but then again I have been trying to do this for quite a while now.... I will def. keep posting. thank you for your encouragement.......
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