Trying to get off this roller-coaster

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-09-2004
Trying to get off this roller-coaster
33
Sun, 12-05-2004 - 11:32pm

Life is so ironic. I was getting ready to post how much progress I've made this weekend, then my computer locked up. While restarting, I caught the end of "Family Man," with Nicholas Cage, on NBC. (If you haven't seen it and don't want to ruin the ending, don't read the rest of this paragraph.) The scene where he's in the airport, telling her about the life they could have together, just crushed me.

I thought I was getting over these emotions. Intellectually, I know that focusing on my marriage is the right thing. But a line from that movie just cut like a knife (ode to Bryan Adams, ha, ha)...he said, "I know we could go on with our lives, and we'd both be just fine. But I have seen what we could be like together, and I choose us." XOM asked me several times, especially toward the end (and a couple of times after) what did I hope my life would be like in 20 years, and when I look back on my life, would I have more regret if I stayed with my husband or if I were to be with him? (after we ended things, he didn't include himself in the mix; he'd just ask what I want my life to be like in 20 years). It still makes me cry to think of not having that complete emotional, spiritual and physical connection and to spend my life without that passion I found with xOM. It's not that I am looking back, second-guessing; I have accepted what I must do. I know that he is moving on; and I am putting all I can into my marriage. (Honestly, I am terrified my husband will find out, because I really don't want to hurt him or our child.) I want to be able to find a way to have that complete connection with my husband. Just seems so strange that something that was so easy and natural with xOM is such an effort with husband.

Just waiting for the roller-coaster to stop so I can get off. I know that somewhere, it's in my power, and though I feel the ride is almost over, I'm still on it. I am taking a few days off so I will not see him at work, at least, until the end of the week. Wish I could say I don't miss him, but at least I will not contact him. Even though he awakened a sense of self-realization, I have such guilt and pain with me that I would rather have lived in ignorance, I think. I am trying to take the positives from this; I know tomorrow I will feel stronger. Just having a weak moment tonight and missing him, as hard as that is to admit. However, I will NOT go back. I will go forward. It just hurts right now.

Again, anyone lurking here contemplating an A or whether to end it, have no doubt, at the end of the rainbow, all you're going to find is rain...and mud.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2004
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 12:10pm

Beth,

How long have you been around? I can't speak for Free, but I know for a fact that neither one of us is "judging" anyone on this board. We have both BTDT and when someone is stuggling with wanting to end these toxic relationships, we try to offer insight and support, but every now and then a good strong shot of reality is called for!

Affairs are at their best, a terrific fantasy, and at their worse, a time bomb ready to blow up everything in it's path. IOW, they are malific, destructive, selfish ploys of escapism. They are not real. They are not healthy. They suck up self esteem and spit out fragments of what is left, if anything. You find my words harsh? Tough to read? Then quite possibly I've hit on something you are not yet ready to face.

I wish all of you strength in your journey to self-preservation,

~True~




Edited 12/6/2004 12:47 pm ET ET by b_true_2_yourself

 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:00pm

I have been on-off the boards for almost 2 years. I do think you're being judgemental - when you say that he's a man, lying and that "desperate housewives" are falling for it...you're generalizing every relationship. And if you were in an affair, then it goes to the point that you "chased" after a married man or you cheated on your H. No one is blameless in these situations -- not the OW or MM or MW or OM. Seems we're all here for the same reason -- we had an affair.

>>It's all part of the game. It has NOTHING to do with you other than you are something different to play with. It has EVERYTHING to do with him AND his needs AND his wants. If he's not getting it at home, he will look for it elsewhere. Just don't complicate the simplicity of these things, or he will run with his tail between his legs to the nearest safe haven available...Home, the BAR or to the arms of still another woman...>> This is the judgemental stuff I'm talking about. If this is true about men in affairs, why isn't true about women? Including you? Was my A nothing about him and all about me? All about my needs and wants? So I must not have been getting it at home and went looking elsewhere? or he wasnt' getting it at home and looking elsewhere? I'm sure this is true about some affairs but it's not universal. It's a generalization that is judgemental.

Your post isn't hard for me to read personally -- I'm way past letting someone I don't know affect me. Not everyone in an Affair is an SOB. I wasn't and neither was the xMM. Not every man in an A says "you're the only one that ever made me feel this way" etc. And there can be a lot of honesty in an A. There can be genuine emotions, great love and and growth from one.




Edited 12/6/2004 1:03 pm ET ET by bethstrong
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-09-2004
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:03pm

>We have both BTDT and when someone is stuggling with wanting to end these toxic relationships, we try to offer insight and support, but every now and then a good strong shot of reality is called for!<

How true. Sometimes a shot of reality is what we all need! And as they say, sometimes reality bites!

Free, as for the air-brushed glow, I know that he has plenty of faults...and am completely aware that I only got one side of the story. And, of course, I know he and I were both in a dishonest relationship that could have hurt many lives (and still could if anyone found out). I don't romanticize that at all. I'm just still grieving at times (however irrational...they are just feelings I have to work through, and sometimes, when you least expect it, it hits you in the gut. Just part of the fallout of an affair). I do want the real deal...I want it with my husband. Will we ever have it? I don't know.

Time will tell...for all of us.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2004
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:14pm

<<<< And there can be a lot of honesty in an A.>>>>

You are kidding, right?

~True~


 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 1:26pm

No, I'm not kidding.

It's a relationship and there can be great friendship and honesty. Everything and everyone isn't a con or a means to an end. I know several people who have had As that were honest -- not build on honesty because of the lies that surround them -- but in the whirlpool of the relationship, great honesty. I lied to my H during the A but I never lied to xMM and he didn't lie to me either. He told me he loved his W; he liked a lot about being married and being married to her. He never told me that she didn't listen and that they didn't have sex or they just lived together. I think we both communicated to the point that we led each other back to our spouses -- realizing that she wasn't the only person that ...fill in the blank with anything that married couples do -- leave the toilet up, make bad coffee, pass gas, etc. Marriage is tough and I think the A showed us both that we had good people in our lives that loved us and that we loved -- strayed from but loved. That we had families, children, friends and that we were being selfish and thinking only of ourselves when we had the "pie in the sky" conversations of a life together. But down deep, we had to think of others and turn our attention to our real life -- not our fantasy. And that we could find it again with our spouses because the love was still there. But that is honesty in itself. And I know several other people that had the same experiences.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2004
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 2:02pm

<<>>>

No doubt. As long as you don't run into him in the "REAL WORLD, eh? Like what happened here?

<<>>

So much for honesty in this relationship. Does your husband know about your affair? How much honesty did you give him?

Got to go now. The REAL world is calling me.

~True~


 

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-08-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 2:23pm

>>No doubt. As long as you don't run into him in the "REAL WORLD, eh? Like what happened here?>>

My relationship with him is over and has been for almost 2 years. I said earlier that Affairs themself are built on lies yet you can have honesty within that whirlwind -- and that's what my relationship was. Did we owe it to each other to say hello, hug and tell his father in law -- this is X, I had an affair with her? Heck no. There's honesty and there's stupidity and us acting as if we were long-lost lovers would have been stupidity.

I am a part of the REAL world, thank you very much -- I have come to terms w/my relationship and my role in it. I don't feel the need to make every other A into some huge dysfunctional, party-boy, player attitude. Nor do I need to make every A into some romantic ideal. My life is my life -- and you have no idea what my life is like or to make a judgement that I don't have a REAL life. Truly, what would you know about my life except for a few lines I've written in an email?

Does my H know? No, and again, that's not your place to judge me --- or anyone else -- for that. Did I give my H honesty? No, and I'm not proud of that. But again, I said that earlier.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 7:13pm

Gal

I understand what your saying BTDT and you have every right to grieve, all I would like to see you and others do is to see the AP male or female honestly, you keep speaking about all the passion and the like, that passion is not based on the real man but on the air brushed facade deliberatly created by XMM at the expense of his XWIFE who is playing the role of the fall woman, the wife often gets painted with the worst possible brush and the XMM with the victim brush to facilitate starting a relationship with the married woman and it is no accident it is a deliberate lie, XAPs role in screwing up there marriage gets downplayed and the spouse gets the lions share of the blame.

Remember I was the OW and this is how XMM operated, he was as it turned very skilled at making his wife look like the total bad guy but he was at least as gulity as she and maybe more so, what helped break me free of the mud was seeing XMM honestly for who he really was not who he pretended to be.

But all things in there time, and you will get there when you do.

""I do want the real deal...I want it with my husband. Will we ever have it? I don't know.""

I believe something the Christian bible says "All things are possible to them that believe", I have found that to be true in my life, I believe you can accomplish anything you believe you can accomplish and that includes a happy marriage.

Free

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 7:22pm

Beth

You keep accusing others of judgeing people but the truth seems to be that YOUR the one who has poped in here and started passing judgement on others, were it comes to JUDGEING OTHERS your talking the talk but not walking the walk on this subject.

JMHO

Free

Avatar for shescomeundone2002
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
Mon, 12-06-2004 - 7:46pm
I was totally honest to XOM while we were together. I was devoted to him and put everything else in my life second to him. Obviously I wasn't honest to H and not to myself either. I'm not a female "player". XOM was not honest to me and did not deserve all that I gave him but that is not the point. My point is that I was honest and there can be an honest and sincere party in something that is downright wrong.

Jazzdiva