How did it start?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-02-2004
How did it start?
9
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 4:02pm
I've been reading some posts on the All Sides of an affair board that have made me curious. I wonder how many people feel that their affair "just happened" or if they feel they thought it through and actively chose to have an affair.

I chose to go skiing with my xMM but honestly thought that there was no way he would be interested in me as anything other than a friend...and I wasn't interested in him at all. He was just someone to go skiing with when none of my other friends were available. The part that "just happened" is that before I knew it, he was my best friend and I was very emotionally involved. I truly did not realize how deeply involved until it had happened. (I work in an industry where most of my co-workers are men and have always felt in certain ways like "one of the guys" so going skiing with him truly felt no different from skiing with one of my other friends...single, male or female.) I did however make the choice to become physically involved but by then we were so emotionally involved that physical intimacy felt almost beside the point.

Even though parts of the A have been among the most painful times of my life, I can't say I truly regret it...I learned so much from him. I will say, however, that I will never again go on an activity alone with a married man no matter how innocent it feels at the time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2004
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 4:22pm
In no way did I go looking for an affair! Never, ever thought it would happen. I was so naive. My XOM & I worked in the same industry so we met at conferences. We became friends. I happened to meet up with him at a bad time in his life and since he didn't know me that well and I was pretty unbiased about things, I became his sounding board. We started talking, eventually every single day. We became very emotionally attached. After a year of this, we were at a conference together, went out for drinks one night, he held my hand, told me he loved me.... The rest was history.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 5:16pm
Did I go looking for an affair? Like everything else about an affair, that's a complicated question... yes and no. I knew my marriage was in big trouble. Before I met my MM, I had thought about having an affair to survive my bad marriage. So, I guess on some subconscious level, yes, I decided that the way to fix my bad situation was to have an affair.

However, I did not meet my MM and think, "there he is... I can screw him on the side!" Our relationship happened more subtly. We confided, we fell in love (lust) had sex, and became part of each other's lives in such a severe way that before we knew it, it was a full-blown enormous love-affair. Unfortunately, it lasted so long that we came to have 'history'.

Did I look for any of the crap that comes along with an affair? No way. I had no idea of the ramifications. I know, duh. But, I didn't. All those bad things... they just 'happened'.

Bird

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 6:13am
My husband went hunting with two friends, leaving three women to fend on their own. One of the men phoned to tell his wife "why don't the three of you get out of the house and do something?" I suppose what resulted wasn't necessarily what they had in mind. One of the women owns a bar here in town so we ended up going there, just us and the locals pretty much. However at one time I glanced over at the gentleman who sat down next to me and I was met with the most intense dreamy bedroom green eyes I'd ever laid eyes on. Fast forward a few hours and I found myself playing kissy face with this man in the parking lot. His brother was in a van and I remember hearing him say "Don't look into his eyes because you'll fall in love." Sure enough. There was an exchange of telephone numbers (my work #) and on Monday I phoned him. It may have been a little bit of "OMG what did we do?" LOL

The first time I stopped at his home I glanced around at all of his furnishings and was amazed at some of the cool antique stuff. I found myself saying "Hey I have a mirror just like that one. Hey my grandmother gave me an 1890 copper indian head key just like yours. Get outta here...I collect chinese cloisonne enamel pottery too. Hey I collect opal stones too. Hey I collect odd Wizard of Oz stuff too. Hey your birthday is the same as my fathers. Really? Your aunt died of Mia Stenia Gravis....how freaky is that, so did mine. Hmmm you have a lump on your forearm, is it a Lipoma? I have one too. LOL" It was all just kind of weird and very comfortable.

But no I was not looking for an affair at all. I guess I was kind of swayed by all of the things that were coincidental in our lives.

elf

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 8:49am
Boy, this is a tough question. For me, I think it was matter of circumstances in my AWFUL marriage that led me to an affair. However, I know the very first time I met exMM, I felt an IMMEDIATE attraction to him--that to this day I do not understand. I can remember looking into his green eyes (maybe its something to do with green,elf?) and feeling like I just fell immediately in love with him. But I've come to find, that means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I'm still healing from this and going through a divorce....so I am raw all the way around.

Sometimes I think that I just a silly unrealistic romantic. That I lived in an imaginery world where people fall in love and nothing else would matter. I never thought he would leave his wife for me....honestly, I don't know what I thought. Part of me, I guess, felt that if we could have an affair, I could somehow survive my marriage. And I was just so addicted to the way I felt around him.....and to the way he treated me with such kindness and gentleness.

But now I just wonder how "kind" he really was. As he got to know me, and I would tell him things about my marriage---not to make him feel bad for me, just in a way you share a bad day with a friend---he would always comment on the controlling nature of my husband. Last Spring, he came out and asked me if I saw how my h was psychological abusing me. (which I did but didn't). Yet, he still remained my "friend"....and he still became intimate with me in the Fall/Winter. If he saw that I was being abused....how could he become intimate with me? Isn't that taking advantage of someone? I mean, I don't really blame him, because I was pushing it (pretty hard too)...so it wasn't like I didn't place myself in that situation. But more and more, I see how messed up I was.

I can remember the first time and only time we actually had intercourse---to me, it was the closest I've come to a spiritual experience during sex. It wasn't that it was physically satisfying...but it made me feel so completely connected---not only to him, but to everything around me. It was an incredible experience. But it wasn't that way for him. In fact, about 6 weeks later...as he is telling me that he could no longer engage in sexual activity, it crushed me to hear him say that "we need to stop putting ourselves in this situation. That even putting oneself in close proximity to sin, is a sin" (he is a former Catholic, but I guess that never really leaves you).

How can one experience it as spiritual and another as sin? I recall thinking that while I did not believe it for one moment to be 'right', I did not view it as a sin because of the way I felt at that moment. That really crushed me, but I never told him. I was too embarrassed to say how I really felt about him (well, how I felt at that moment, now I no longer know how I felt). So, now I'm caught in thinking....was this necessarily sinful? According to the Bible and all other religious practices....YES!

And yet, I have never had this experience during sex. Even in my sanctified Catholic marriage, when an affair was the FARTHEST from my thoughts, one that was deemed "right and proper" by religion....never did I have this experience. So, it leaves me in a state of utter confusion about all this and very ripped apart. (but like I said, I'm going through a divorce....and I have PMS---not a good combo)

So, to answer your question (sorry, just had to get that out):

When we met it just "happened", but at some point I actively chose to engage in activity that I knew was wrong....be it sinful or just wrong. And deep down I knew it was.

dharma

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 10:18am
Mine started simply because i was open to it. About 3 years ago, on New Year's Eve, i made a resolution that i was going to have an A just so i could simply be touched (my H and i have sex about once a year, sometimes once every two years and it has been that way since we met nearly 18 years ago).

So, I met my XMM on the Little League field. He told me it was love at first sight. He started e-mailing me and it turned out we had sooo much in common. I started looking forward to those emails more and more every day. Then it evolved into telephone calls. One day, I emailed him how happy i was that we were friends and that i felt like there had never been a time i had not known him. He wrote back the next morning that, to be safe, he would just say "ditto." He titled the header of his email "You pushed the reset button on the counter of my heart"--a song by Smashmouth. Later that morning he called me and told me he had fallen in love with me.

The next day, he started backtracking, telling me he was sorry for sharing his feelings with me; that he didn't want to hurt me, etc. After i let him talk for about 30 minutes, i gave him the tounge lashing of his life, telling him what a jerk he was to have even said anything to me at all. He ended up crying on the phone and just kept saying: I think i am going to throw up. He was terribly upset. This started a pattern that still exists to this day: he opens up to me, tells me he loves and wants me and then gets scared and backs off.

It's funny, because i have never been prone to the advice of psychics, but i did see one this past summer and he told me that my desire had "somehow magnetized" my XMM to me. That the need i had, apparently, was very obvious to him and that is how we became attracted to one another--as his own marriage was not living up to his own expectations (he has been married the exact many years as I have, and his W is very much like my H--very closed off and remote).

I am having difficulty right now as i am reliving these things as they all happened around this same time last year. March and April of last year were very exhilirating months for me as i was falling in love with him and realizing how loveable and desireable i was--after being in this touchless marriage for so long.

The last time he told me he loved me was in February. Since then, we still have contact, but it is not in that intimate way. I miss him.

Clarice

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-02-2004
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 11:12am
In retrospect, I think it's easy to say, "Duh, I should have known." But like you I didn't understand the all of the implications of my decisions. I had no way of understanding that this would be both the most emotionally fulfilling and emotionally painful time of my life.

I always knew it was "wrong." What amazes me to this day is how little I thought of his wife's feelings. I always said that I would never have an affair because I would never do that to another woman...but I obviously forgot that.

There's a book called "The New Other Woman" that has some pretty interesting things to say about single women involved with married men. It talks about that fact that when the affair is just starting, the single woman is able to "justify" the "friendship" because it's safe because he's married and she believes that he will never see her as anything other than a friend. At some point she realizes that she's emotionally involved. That's exactly how it happened for me. My xMM was just a "safe" person to hang out with at the beginning but became so much more. Like other people have said, I have never felt such an emotional connection to someone before, but I think that because he was "safe" and I didn't worry about starting a "relationship" with him I let my guard down more than I normally do. That's one of the things I learned from the affair...I am lovable just the way I am. My xMM knows pretty much everything there is to know about me and still adored me. I have NEVER felt that from someone before.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 9:06pm
it developed from a friendship through our children over several years. he actively pursued me after our children started going to different schools (and I got a divorce in the meantime). I was clueless about his attraction to me until he started pursuing me. It was one year post divorce. I was lonely and needy and horny, I'm sure!

He asked me on an "innocent" outing -- theater tickets he & his W had and she was out of town on business with their children. He even asked her who he should take & suggested another woman they both knew, who was very sexy and more flirtatious than me. She suggested he ask me instead --"poor "jane," she needs a nice evening out!" Little did she know "dick" wanted "jane."

I eventually did choose to have the affair but never sincerely intended it to be any more than that -- though I did believe at the time that I loved him. At times, I thought I wanted more but could not face breaking up his family. When the guilt and shame of it started eating me up, I ended it. I'm so so grateful that we didn't go further than the affair.

I've been with a great single guy for a year now. It's harder but it's real and so enriching for my life.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-19-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 10:23pm
Am I the only one that eventually fell for an instant messenger? Prior to xMM, I owned a computer for 4 years, each and every time someone instant messaged me, I never replied! Come to think of it, I didn't reply to xMM's initial 5 attempts! One night I was pissed at his persistence of instant messaging me that I replied telling him I don't chat with strangers!

His immediate response made me feel guilty, he said he was dealing with a personal tragedy and was just looking for someone to chat with to take his mind off his troubles. I listened, asked questions and became his comfort friend. The interesting aspect of our start was once I figured out what he really wanted, I spent the next month telling him he needs to say all this to his wife not me!

In the meantime, through phone calls (his office) and hundreds of emails, he had learned all there was to know about my unhappy marriage and he willingly offered to be my comforting friend. We agreed to meet for lunch but never made it out of his car into the restaurant....and the rest is history.

Looking for an affair? NO WAY!!!




iVillage Member
Registered: 10-17-2003
Fri, 04-02-2004 - 5:46pm
I definately never sought out this kind of relationship especially as painful as it is.I would much rather have established the kind of intimacy I have with MM with a single man.I definately feel like it just kind of happened.I actually knew MMs W first and then met him later.Although there was this instant connection and strange familiarity with him, never in my wildest dreams did I think we would end up this way and for this long.We connected as friends and then one day addmitted that we were feeling something deeper in addition to the physical attraction that was there.It was a very confusing time and neither one of knew what we were doing.I was married at the time also but had realized long before him that I was miserable.I had just resigned myself to the fact that this was my life and I would never find the love I was looking for, I found satisfaction in my kids.It didnt take long for me after realizing I was in love with him to get out of my marriage, even though I really wasnt expecting him to do the same.Its been almost 4 years since I met him, and a lot of things have changed.At this point he is on the fence, but we are so emotionally attached, I cant imagine walking away, but I know I need more.

Emma