A Guy's Thoughts on Affairs, Love, Sex

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-14-2003
A Guy's Thoughts on Affairs, Love, Sex
6
Sun, 12-14-2003 - 7:54pm
It's been a while since I last posted here, so long in fact I forgot my user id. But many of you cautioned me before I took the leap to infidelity, and I decided to give my marriage another shot for fulfillment. Well, here I am back, so guess what the result was?

The last year did give me a chance to reflect on why I have this desire for an affair. I just wanted to understand why I had this insatiable impulse. Many of you claimed your affairs "just happened" - that it wasn't just about sex, or emotional needs. Probably a hodge-podge of both, mixed in with a desire to escape (at least temporarily) from an insufficient marriage life.

I still don't quite understand how affairs can just "happen", because every action that I take starts with a thought, then a decision to either proceed with doing it or not. Especially when an affair moves to the physical part; how can that "just happen"? Maybe it is a way to ease the conscience of guilt.

Anyhow, I've been married for over a decade and marriage has pretty much settled down to a routine. Over the years I found my wife becoming more self-centered, leaving me pretty much emotionally unfulfilled. Things are not continuously bad, but when they are, I find myself desiring other women to the point where I almost cannot contain myself. The thoughts of my desire for intimacy with another woman turns sexual because I don't think it's possible for me to become emotionally intimate with a woman without becoming sexually intimate with her too. For a long time I thought that being "horny" is the driving force behind my wandering eyes, but now I realize that it is not the case.

OK, I admit, the thought of having sex with another women sounds pretty exciting in it's own right, but so does flying the space shuttle to the moon. It by itself isn't enough reason to go out and do it. It's more like a person who is dying of hunger. She may have no energy, and have stomach pains, and prone to get other diseases. Each symptom on it's own can mean many things, but you put them all together and you can determine the person is starving for food. I think me desiring an affair is an attempt to fulfill a strong human need, just like for food. I simply put my symptoms together. (If this is common knowledge for any of you already, I apologize for the repetition).

The main difference between one year ago and now is that I am 40 pounds lighter! I started working out again and am down to my comfortable weight, lost my belly, and looking pretty doggone good (if I may say so myself). I've been noticing getting scoped out by women again, something that I thought was long gone, so I got a little bit of swagger back. : )

Thanks for "listening" while I dumped on you all....

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-24-2003
Sun, 12-14-2003 - 10:54pm

Hi sktchser,


I do in a sense agree with you... that things don't "just happen" and I must admit... that I put a lot of thought into my affair before I "jumped" into it.

Sweet
Co-Community Leader My

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-14-2003
Sun, 12-14-2003 - 11:40pm
Thanks for the post SweetC. To answer your question, I had somewhat of a swagger most of my life. Not arrogant, but just enough so I don't appear to be a shmuck. I'm tall and built well, and considered handsome by women. I've had probably above average attention from women compared to the average Joe during the course of my life.

Five or so years ago my weight just shot up, thought it was just getting older, my confidence suffered. I fell into that lazy, marriage trap I think. All of a sudden I felt old. One day looking in the mirror nekked, I thought who would be attracted to THIS? My location prevented getting to a gym, so I invested and brought a gym to me!

So I got the bod back that I had before (welllll, not exactly to a "T", but close), grew my hair longer like it used to be, got some nice clothes. This came about not a year ago, but much more recent.

Two events happened in the last few days that made me feel good. One was a meeting with an attractive lady client who I hadn't met with since my change. As we sat down and she started talking, I was staring in her eyes and she stuttered over he words, her lips were like quivering, and had to start over a sentence a few times. She's always been a little flirty, and yes, I've thought of myself with her, especially right there during the meeting. That's how strong the attraction was. She got back to her normal self after a few minutes, she later brushed my arm with her hand a few times to make a point (and she sure did!).

Yesterday at the store a very attractive women was with her husband (or b/f) and I saw her staring at me several times, then look away when I looked at her. This went on for a few minutes as we shopped the same aisle - her husband was jabbering away with a sales person. I was scoping her out too because I liked what I saw, and as they walked away towards the door, I thought to myself (besides her having a nice behind) that if she looks back over her shoulder, she is interested. Not two seconds later she did so, and I was ready and smiled, which she returned back. I knew nothing would become of this one, but it was nice to be noticed and flirt again!


iVillage Member
Registered: 11-21-2003
Sun, 12-14-2003 - 11:58pm
Just had to put in my two cents...

I honestly think that we all( men and women) like to be noticed by the opposite sex, it makes us feel good about ourselves to have a stranger flirt or look you over and let you know that they like what they see. Who wouldn't ?

It really is nice to hear a mans thoughts on these things...Thank you

SB

 Seeburg    

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 12-15-2003 - 10:20am
I have a couple of questions.

What is it about your wife that you feel makes her "self-centered?"

Do you think your marriage suffered intimacy due to some of your shortcomings; weight, self-image?

What I mean is that it is natural for someone to recognize all of the attention after losing 40 pounds and becoming a more secure individual. However, maybe your wife was feeling pretty alone all the years you were 40 pounds heavier and not real motivated to do anything about it. Could this be possible?

I don't know your wife or you but have a DH who lost a lot of weight and is a very differnt person. I, in turn, am more attracted to him and proud of him and his accomplishments. It would really make me angry if he decided to turn to someone else after all the years I stayed with him through the low times.

Have you tried talking with her?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-03-2003
Mon, 12-15-2003 - 10:56am
Hi, skrtchser, and thanks for posting here. It's always great to hear the male perspective. I lost 70+ pounds a year and a half ago and took a while to get into the new "me." I can't say I never considered an affair before that time; I just didn't have the opportunity. Around the time I lost my weight, a male co-worker was also losing weight and we reached our goal together (through different diets). We bonded over the issues we had concerning the new us, but it never occurred to me to be attracted to him until one day when we were in a meeting and I suddenly saw him as if for the first time. He'd always flirted and complimented me, but at the time he'd been put in charge of a pretty important project and he was really focused on it and his thoughts weren't really on women at that time. Suddenly I felt DRAWN to him and it was bizarre to me. (I tell you this as perhaps a helpful hint -- if you've been paying a lot of attention to the women in your office, try ignoring them for a while. It'll draw 'em in like crazy!) Anyway, I still wasn't considering him attractive; I just wanted him to want me. Then one day he looked at me as if he'd never seen me before -- I had a tan all of a sudden and was fixing my hair differently. He came on strong and we've been having a really intense flirtation ever since. I still am hesitant to call it an affair because all we really do is talk. We kissed a few times over the summer, but it was too risky in the office and we're not yet ready to make that leap to meeting outside. I still have a lot of issues with him in that I'm not sure he's really ready for an affair. That's okay, though, because I'm not sure *I'M* ready! I physically want him, and I have fun with him, but he's in no way my soul mate. It would be SO much easier if H were a rat and MM were this really great guy I had so much in common with. In fact, bizarre though it sounds, the A would be MUCH more compelling if H were the other man. I've never admitted that before, but I've felt that way for a long time. I think H is my soul mate, but MM is just so darn SEXY, especially when he looks at me as though he wants to... Well, you know. We're going to get to the point where we HAVE to meet, I guess, but it's going to be a while before either of us are ready to take that risk. (By "risk," I mean me with my heart and him with getting caught!)


Edited 1/23/2004 8:32:30 AM ET by lilah_iv
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-12-2002
Mon, 12-15-2003 - 6:28pm
I'm one of those who would say it "just happened," but what I mean is that the attraction just happened, at a time when I was vulnerable to it in a way I had not been for years (it happened just a few days after 9/11). Obviously every step after that was thought through by both him and me.

Why it happened, I'm still not sure. Yeah, I got surprised by an emotion and attraction at a time when I was strangely vulnerable, but why I decided to follow through is wrapped up in post-9/11 stuff, religious views, a possible over-acceptance of human nature, and a few other things. It is *not* related (emphatically NOT related) to my husband's being selfish, cold, stupid, underachieving, a bad lover, uninteresting, uncommunicative, or anything of the sort. He is none of those things.

When you say your wife has become self-centered, I wonder what you mean by that? Is she engrossed in herself only, or is she also involved with children and family? Sometimes behaving in a self-absorbed way *can* be a misguided attempt to get some attention - though of course it could be that she finds herself the most interesting person she knows. I certainly wouldn't know. ;)