Attention- MEN - (Ladies too!)

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anonymous user
Registered: 12-31-1969
Attention- MEN - (Ladies too!)
8
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 7:08am

Greetings All:

I am interested on how many men are posting on this board? Also, what the situation was: OW, and if the men that do post on this board are single? Just wondering. In my situation, we are both married to other people. I am not even sure if we actually had an "Affair". He was guy from school 25 years ago, started email, phone contact and instant messenger, 9 months ago, they were very intense. We agreed we can not meet in person or it's a hotel...

so we still haven't seen each other in 16 years. So I wanted opinions did I actually have an affair?

Kris

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 9:43am

Kris

Sounds like and EA to me that could slip off the edge to a PA and trust me you don't want that.

Free

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 10:52am

Kris

Measure the COST, not just to yourself but to his wife and family and your husband and family...how much are they expected to pay so you can TRY this again.

Bare in mined in 18 years you both have changed a great deal more then you may think your not the people you were all those years ago, a pleasent fantasy is one thing real life with a person 24/7 is totally different.

And what about your respective MARRIAGE VOWS, you gave your word of honor to two people that have built a life based on YOU what about them and there life/love and needs, do they rank less they yours because you will not feel there pain ?

A selfish question for you: You both run away to be together then the relationships kicks the bucket and you find yourself TOTALLY ALONE for the first time in 20 years then WHAT, are you ready to be OLD AND ALONE...Y/N.

In the real world 95 plus percent of affair based relationships don't last 1 year once they move into the real world that number goes up as time goes on, second marriage even with out affairs have an 80 - 85 percent divorce rate pretty bad odds.

Do EVERYONE a big big favor and close the door on this thing and lock it forever, clos e the lines of communications, delete mails block or close e-mail and IM accounts that he is aware of, have your phone company block calls from his numbers and any unknown numbers, IMPOSE TOTAL NO CONTACT, if not for yourself then do it for all the people whos lives your on the brink of destroying FOR SOMETHING THAT WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY END UP AS NOTHING.

Your not a kid anymore.

Free

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 10:56am

A WORD ABOUT ADULTERY

Adultery is the most selfish, destructive and hateful thing a person can do.

It’s funny what you don’t know going in.

Or what you choose to ignore.

And it’s tragic that you don’t realize until it’s too late, until what’s done is done, how utterly wasted a life can be. How hopeless hopeless can become. How the promise and joy of life can slip like water through guilty hands.

Hell is merely realizing what you’ve done.

Mostly to others, but ultimately to yourself.

Hell is the flash of memory, snippets and snapshots of a happy spouse, a newlywed or new mother, pleased and pledged, her future and hopes tied to you. Her whole life in all its stages gambled on you. The very nature, substance and quality of her life, through all its years, depending on a promise you have casually or repeatedly broken.

How you can take an hour or a decade of selfishness and condemn an innocent person to a lifetime of loneliness and disappointment.

How you can steal someone’s dream and leave it tattered and stained, unrecognizable and unsalvageable. And not just any someone. The one person who has given you more than any other. The only one who truly understands you and cares about you, and who proved it by giving herself to you. By having faith in you and supporting you. By taking your name and taking your fate.

That’s the one you destroy.

It’s an emotional murder. The snuffing out of a life that should have been lived. Not the stopping of a heart, but the breaking of a heart. Taking the “happily” out of “happily ever after.” It’s an emotional murder.

And that’s the hell.

For you because you deserve it, and for her because she doesn’t.

Then there are the children.

Innocents whose lives are forever and unfairly changed. Who have a mommy and a daddy one day, but not the next. At least not in a real way. Not in the way they are supposed to. No Christmases and family reunions and weddings and graduations, no family nights around the dinner table or the TV, it’s all just shattered and broken.

You’d kill someone who hurt your children a fraction of how badly you’ve hurt them, and yet you’ve done it, and they tell you it’s OK but you know it’s not and you’ve done it and you can’t run away from it and Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again.

And children cry.

When they are young, and decades later when they are old.

The family died, and daddy did it.

That’s the hell.

Realizing that.

Realizing that you did that to them. That you have returned hate for love, betrayal for trust, evil for good.

You have broken the only promise you really had to keep. And in the world of cause and effect they reap the harvest you have sown.

Adultery isn’t something you do with another person, it is something you do to your family. To the hopes and lives of the only people who will ever really matter to you.

It is a blind and hateful selfishness, a universe out of kilter, an arrogance of priority and interest. You are all that matters, nothing else counts, and you have everything backwards.

And it seals you off until you are alone and they don’t have you even if you are in their midst. Ultimately you rot so much that it collapses, the marriage and the family, and out you spin, not realizing a fraction of what you’ve done and who you’ve hurt and what you’ve lost.

But it comes eventually. In the dark of the night, in the realizations of the soul, in the honesty of humility.

And you can’t think about what you’ve lost, because you’re too ashamed of what you’ve taken. Ashamed and anguished and wrong.

And that is hell. The realization of what you’ve done. Of who you’ve hurt. Of the damage you’ve caused. Of the fact it’ll never go away.

That is the lake of fire and brimstone.

You realize that life was a test.

And you failed.

You failed your family.

Adultery brings nothing but sorrow and pain. The likes of which words cannot communicate and imagination cannot conjure.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” was not a restriction, it was a warning.

Which only fools fail to heed.

Bob Lonsberry © 2004

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2005
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 1:16pm

Kris,

My situation is very similar to yours. I had an A with someone from High school over 20 years ago. In high school we were very good friends and I know there was an attraction, we didn't have IC but we fooled around a lot. I thought about him all these years and really felt that we were soul mates. I looked for him for 7 years! Long story, short...we met up again last year without our spouses. After being together, I thought for sure that we would leave our spouses and plan on being together. We continued to email each other and talk on the phone when we could (we live in different states). All of a sudden he told me (by email) that he was going to work on his marriage and the guilt of what he had done was too much for him. We've had NC since November. Now we can't even be friends and I miss that the most. I wish I had just kept him as a friend because at least we would still be talking to each other. My advice to you is not to get into an A with him, it's very damaging to yourself and your family. I didn't want to believe all the people on this board about NC and getting into therapy, etc. I thought I was "different". But I found out that everyone on this board is correct about NC. The pain at first is unbearable. Today, I no longer have that unbelieveable pain in my heart from my xMM and I can actually get through the day without crying for every little thing. I still think about him every day but not in the same way. I realized he is not the man I thought he was. He was just my fantasy, my prince charming coming to rescue me from my "miserable" life. Well, I was the one who made my life miserable back then and it was up to me to change all of that. I'm am stronger today because of it, I learned my lesson. Listen to Free, I'm glad I did, he knows what he's talking about.

Dallas

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-13-2004
Tue, 03-08-2005 - 8:21pm

kris,

my opinion is you are having an emotional affair, some may agree and some may disagree

i am single and OW is kind of not single, its complicated, OW is the one who ended it

- i would suggest to run as far as u can from MM, it will hurt like u never experience before, if u read all the posts on this board, u can see that in the end , its all hurt and pain, not only to u, but to MM and his family, your family, H and kids if u have kids, other members of the family, friends also

im just merely stating was has happened to most of us having an AFFAIR, its hard to rebuild but why go in one when u dont have to, look deep inside your heart and mind, ask yourself why u want to be with this MM ?????

be true to yurself, i did not have that luxury and i was drawn into the lies and fantasy i build up in my mind about OW, i thought she is the one, my soulmate, turns out dream became a nightmare for me and im living it day to day right now

i work with OW too so its a bit hard not to have contact with her, im trying to move on but u can tell from my old posts the pain and hurt i am going thru, so i u like pain and depression then an affair might do it for u, is it love or lust ??

kris, pls., this is my personal opinion only , i beg you not to be haste and jump into an affair with MM, pls read the postings in this board and see how much pain and suffering there is

i wish you well, i hope u can make an informed decision, in the end its all up to u, and we are here to listen and give our honest opinion and not be judgemental

take care,
max