The Reason I'm Here
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 08-29-2003 - 9:38pm |
Nobody seems to judge here, and all seem to want to help. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found this board. I didn't know anyone else felt like I did. But all of us seem to be hurting, in one way or another, even though we're in love. We all love someone, and we know it's not right, but we can't help it. I mean, I'm almost 57 years old, and I feel like a teenager, IN ALL WAYS! (gives you youngsters something to aspire to, doesn't it?? :) )
If I would use my brain, I would realize that what my sweetie and I have (and our love affair is really new) must end, and will end. It can't be any other way. If I would use my brain, I would spend time trying to make things right with my H of 34 years, instead of ignoring that and concentrating on my love. I'm just tired, and MM gives me what I have always needed.
I read all of your posts, and it just breaks my heart, because I know that most of your hearts will be broken too. What do we all want? Love. And this affair gives us what we want and need. Maybe it's just sex, maybe it's just the excitement of somebody finally seeing something more in us. But there's got to more than that. I don't know-I'm a mature, intelligent woman, but I'm besotted, and I don't know what to do. I can't even imagine how those of you who are so much younger, with other complications, cope.
Less than 3 months ago, I led a pleasant, if uneventful, suburban life. Now my life is full of finding ways I can see my long distance lover, full of deceit and lies, and I'm NOT a good liar, and, quite honestly, I'm not so proud of myself. And we will never even get to see each other more than every couple of months! That's not a life!
You know, I just read Annie's post-she asked if it always has to be so hopeless. You know, I think it is that hopeless. That's the reality.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here, if anything. I'm just glad I have this place to say it in.
Legs
Edited 8/29/2003 9:42:11 PM ET by longlegs2
Edited 8/29/2003 9:45:46 PM ET by longlegs2
Edited 8/29/2003 9:48:28 PM ET by longlegs2

Pages
MM
I like your post... Many of those thoughts run through my mind, too. This board has been a lifesaver for me. It was all too much to keep inside, yet there was no where to turn to talk. Until I found this board and the supportive people who participate in it. I have a few miles on my engine - I'm 42 years old - but know I have many more to go.
Our A has been doomed from the start because I refuse to leave my H. At first, I was consumed with guilt, yet unable to resist the temptation, the elation, the restoration of my ego after years of being ignored by H.
I am comforted by a couple of things... First, my OM accepts the terms of our R and says that all of the difficulties inherent in it are "worth it." Simple as that. (I wish I could resist overthinking things like he does!) Second, reality dictates that life will be too short. We sometimes have to put ourselves first and do things to ensure our own happiness. For me, this means unwittingly falling into a loving relationship outside of my M. As long as no one else finds out, no one else risks getting hurt. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided the benefits outranked the risks.
I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret some of the rare and wonderful opportunities I missed out on. Now, instead of guilt, I feel lucky to have stumbled into a R with a warm, patient man who respects my needs and desires. And I hope this house of cards stays intact.
Pug
What a great post Legs!
You have very eloquently summed up what I have been feeling for almost 3 years. I, too, should be working on my M instead of being all consumed with MM. I just can't! I, too, should be following my 43-year-old brain instead of what feels like my 16-year-old heart! I just can't!
I agree that, eventually, the fire that we are playing with will most likely burn us. I know that the man that I love.. that I crave.. will never leave his W. Nor will I leave my H. There is no real reason for this, other than loyalty, history and a strange sense of commitment and friendship. There are no financial worries on either side, no young children to stay for...
Is this all about sex for MM and I? I really can't say. We do love each other, but at what level? Do we love each other for bringing back excitement, desire, and yes, mind-numbing sex to each other's lives? For building each other's egos by rearranging complicated work/home schedules, for jeopardizing years of career aspirations, and family relationships just to steal a few moments together? Do we love each other because we are lost soulmates sharing the same dysfunctional M's? I don't know. But whatever the level, we are in love and when this ends, it will crush me.
MM and I had a conversation a few months ago about our R ending. He, very practically, told me that someday this would have to end. Hard as that was to hear, I know that he is right. He told me that he never wants to hurt me. I believe him. My response… I will be hurt, terribly, but nothing in life is free and that will be the price of our A. Right now, I am willing to pay that price for the happiness of the moment. Of course, that is easy to say, since the payment is not due yet.
I think that our best bet is to enjoy this while it lasts, end it when the pain exceeds the pleasure and close the door softly when the time comes to leave.
Thanks for the post.
Many hugs
RH
First, hopeless as it applies to the EMAs is only if the parties involved either have different end-goals or neither is willing to do the work to get to the desired end goal. It's all about choices... not hope, fate, or an accidental "whoops". For some who want to be with OM or MM, but are not, it's a choice. It may not be their choice, but it is their MM/OM's, and most of them had made that clear in the beginning of the EMA. If both parties agreed in the beginning that they were not leaving their spouses, then there's no "hope" to speak of because both are already working on the premise of the same end-goal.
I also don't believe it's all about the heart and not the mind. That assumes the two are not tied together. And again, I believe we make choices. We can choose to follow our heart, our emotions, or we can choose to think through our options and select the most "reasonable" course of action, or we can think through the options and decide the risk is worth it... or, or, or. But we make a conscious choice. No one wakes up one day and says, "Oh my gosh, did I just start an EMA yesterday? I sooooo didn't mean to do that!" Most of these relationships have been developing over time, we are aware of the attraction we choose to act or not to act upon that attraction. We may act without thinking, and call that following our heart, but that's another choice we make.
So in my mind, EMAs do not have to be hopeless nor mindless. I have been thinking on this topic for a long time, weighing what it would or wouldn't mean to me to get involved in one, and I have been pushed to really consider what *I* want and need... and whether an EMA really fits that. I do not have any answers yet. But I appreciate being pushed and challenged to think this through. If I make a bad choice, I will know it was my bad choice to make!
Thanks for the chance to explore this from a slightly different angle.
lily
I feel exactly the same. We will always be together, somehow, someway, I truly believe that! Also rekindled love. We have talked about this and there is no way that we will ever have complete NC. It isn't possible, unless, like you say, one of us dies! We did not forget each other in over 40 years, I don't see us stopping now!!!
There is a substantial contingent of people with
some real life experience here. At 54 I have a few
miles myself. I don't guess I need to tell you which
miles I cherish the most, I suspect you know. And as
for judgeing others, as the Byrds said, "I was so much
older then, I'm younger than that now".
I love your post, and understand exactly what you
are saying. I guess if we could have it all, then we
would be married to our special other. And yet, I am
not so sure that would work either. Would that ultimately
pass in it's turn? I surely didn't think my first M
would meet the fate it has come to. I am concerned
I might be wrong again, but have no chance of testing this.
I often think that beauty holds within itself
the seeds of it's own destruction, that the fate of all
beauty is to be ignored. I once (many years ago) lived
in Boulder Colorado. When people would visit they would
look up at the mountains and say something like "Those
are gorgeous!". I would glance up and be taken aback,
because they were gorgeous, I had just grown used
to the beauty and was ignoring it. I saw it every day and
it lost it's effect on me. So I am wary of beauty, I know
I will come to take it for granted. Perhaps that is why
most A's are short lived things, though there are a number
of people on this board that seem to have beaten the odds.
I think part of the electric excitement of an EMA is
finding someone that is willing to play the game too, just
to be with you. To fly in the face of social rules, to
risk what you risk, solely in the name of wanting to
love you and be loved in return. It is a big, big risk,
and only makes the gift sweeter for me. I think it is a
tremendous turn on, I live for that passion and excitement.
In the end, I think of an EMA as a zero sum game. The
thrills and excitement I think are about equally balanced
in the end by the pain. I feel you can choose to play or
not. We all know where the path eventually winds up, we
are all dead. I guess I will slumber the long sleep better
having lived each moment to the fullest. For having taken
the risk to love, even a forbidden love. Virtue, to me,
feels empty without love. Chastity is it's own just
punishment.
If you choose to open yourself to joy, then you also
choose to open yourself to pain. Isn't it odd how life is
always such a balance between opposites? Good and evil,
light and dark, life and death, man and woman, future
and past, joy and pain... I would rather feel it all, I
think, both the good and the bad.
Please don't weep for my broken heart, I told MW she
couldn't break it, I wouldn't let her. It might be a little
tender in places, but it is a long way from broken. Don't
cry for me young lovers, I've had a love of my own.
I guess I fall in with all the existentialists on the board,
I choose to love, as have you. It provides me a great deal of
comfort at night, when I am not alone, but am alone all the same.
To life, and all it brings! Thanks for rambling together!
ditr
Pages