the Trap of an Affair

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-25-2008
the Trap of an Affair
9
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 6:42am

Found this on the EAS board and I think it captures my affair perfectly - how about you?
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Here is the trap of the affair:

You are coasting along in your life, maybe not entirely unhappily and maybe each day is different only in shades of gray and then you meet this person and you WAKE THE FK UP; color pours into your world and everything tastes better; every love song ever written is about YOU and this person; you cannot wait to wake up in the morning; you cannot wait to hear the things that will come out of this person’s mouth; there is no mundane, there is no taken for granted, there is no just-getting-through-life.

But you don’t really know if this is because this person is your soul mate or if it is because you are involved in a highly intoxicating situation that has a tenuous relationship to reality. Everything is felt to the 12th degree because your time together is compacted down to a dime. So every moment has to count! You don’t pay the bills together; and you don’t see the person every day for years on end in every varying state of his or her life so you don’t get that boredom lull.

When you eventually end it, and you will have to unless you are truly one of the lucky ones who can f* their best friend, lover, soul mate, other half and go home and not want one iota more of this person than you are getting (and kudos to you if you fit this profile..I almost wish I had this ability myself), you will feel grief of the most gutting, visceral pain you have ever known. You cannot acknowledge that there is now a hole inside of you because you are not supposed to be getting your fill elsewhere in the first place.

No contact is usually attempted so you cannot talk to the one person who makes you feel better about everything; you cannot put a band-aid on the wound which really needs f'ing hospitalization but you spray it with Bactine and hope for the best. You keep picking at it and picking at it until it bleeds again but then you realize that only when you leave it alone— truly well and alone — will it heal and fade. But you can’t because it is there. So you pick again. You convince yourself that without this person in your life, you will never feel that alive again; that electrically charged; that AWAKE. You mourn the loss of what you think was a better you; a more exciting, vibrant you; a you that was firing on all cylinders. You go back to dead you and guess what? dead you is soul-suckingly boring. Don’t you deserve to feel alive? Dammit don’t you deserve a little f'ing happiness in this den of misery we operate in? What is so wrong with having something that makes your soul sing? Must you really give up every shred of happiness to fall into society’s role of the perfect man or woman?

But guess what? This will never bring you happiness because you cannot live on half measures and you cannot live in between the cracks. The push and pull will kill you. Up/down, back and forth. I need him, I want him, I love him, he is not mine, get over it, forget him, move on, numb, cope, survive, deal, steel yourself to get through WITHOUT HIM.

But knowing what you have to do and truly believing this is the course of action you wish to pursue? Worlds apart…your heart isn’t in it. You don’t want to live without this person. You don’t want to settle.

Welcome to purgatory. Trying to find a way out may kill you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-24-2008
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 7:04am
Oh so true....every word of it. The thing is, I wanted to get to the point of paying the bills together and falling into "boredom" with each other. I was tired of the fantasy and unrealistic side of everything. I was tired of settling for only half and honestly, MM is the one who pushed for us to get to that point so we could be together and be married but every time we started getting closer to that point, he's the one who backed out when he couldn't handle the guilt and the reality of the financial consequences. To be honest, I think if he could, he would simply replace me with her as long as he could leave everything else in his comfy little corner of the world intact, but that isn't the way it works.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 7:15am

no this does not describe my affair.

Mrs.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2009
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 7:38am

gabby,


Great observation. I could have written your post! I read an intro in a book once about RL women who were having affairs. Some were happy with the status quo of the secret life but many were miserable.


the author asked all of them why they didn't leave and her overriding conclusion was, "The devil they knew was better than the devil they didn't".


I think this kind of sums up why some people stay in unhappy relationships. At least you know what you're dealing with and a lot of people just don't want to leave the comfortable lifestyle they've amassed.


Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.       ~Anonymous
 &nb

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-04-2009
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 8:50am

Yes, your every word describe my affair.

playing the fool..is never easy
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-08-2005
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 9:08am
you sound a lot like mslola.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2005
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 7:45pm

Don't worry honey. It will end. You wont have to do it. He will as soon as he meets someone his own age. My xap is engaged now. I just hope he doesn't keep you hanging on for years. Mine told me if i would come see him after his divorce. He wouldn't date. Now he is engaged. This will be his 3 rd marriage. I know it wont work out just like the other two.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-02-2004
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 8:57pm

That was a perfect description. I'm a survivor of this pergatory! I got a divorce after/during "our" affair (me & my MM). We were gonna be together..we WERE soul mates and all described....I was the

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-12-2007
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 10:32pm

I think you found yourself, and that is the greatest thing in the world. I think the real trap of the affair is the false sense of selfworth that it gives us. I think it is false at the time when we are in it because it is all based around how that person makes us feel.


You know you are healthy when you can say I love me no matter what. Good luck and congrats I am glad things worked out for you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2009
Mon, 05-04-2009 - 11:45pm

That description of purgatory was amazing.