SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The truth I learned through becoming a WW.

I used to think I wanted to know everything that was going on in my WH's mind. But now that I have crossed a line I wish I did not know what he could possibly have been feeling.

The things I learned becoming a Wayward:

1. When you feel like shit you do shitty things.

2. It's all about relieving pain.

For me the pain of betrayal hurt like crazy and I decided that I needed retribution so I thought.

I am sad all day with varying moments of flatness or okayness. When i received the "Happy Thanksgiving" text from an ex I immediately felt an opportunity to feel more than okay.

3. The affair grows fast and the AP somehow says exactly what you want to hear so you think...but maybe it's just that you want to hear anything other than flatness and everyday silence. The contentment I used to have knowing that my husband and I can just sit next to each other in silence and be content was suddenly not an attribute anymore. That fast something I used to think was awesome my brain deemed as boring and unappealing...a flaw.

4. All the "feel goods"of something new pulls you in fast. My husband was NOT in my head at all. Here is the hurtful part....I didn't once think of him while I was texting the AP on the couch next to him. I left the couch and went to the bedroom to continue. I was so excited to hear from him out of the blue. That excitement trumped my cuddling on the couch next to my husband watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving as we have done traditionally for over 23 years.

5. I wanted the phone by my side not because I wanted to be sneaky but because I couldn't wait to read what he wrote because he words made me high.

6. He made me feel only great and desirable because he said so every other sentence. It was entoxicating.

7. I could not focus on anything but him and when we would meet up. it moved to talking live to him wanting to fly out. Still no disdain for husband at this point only indifferece as if my husband was a hologram moving around me from a past life.

8.The AP didn't bring up my husband and neither did I. I would tell him if I couldn't text him for a while because of family stuff.

9. My daydreams were of the AP almost immediately.And I am still thinking about him right now even though we NC.

10. As soon as I decided to go serious NC i started dissecting my husband. I said to him I don't want to be stuck in a rut. I want to do some exciting things in the bedroom. I proceeded to text my husband in a very sexual way that I had been texting the AP and when my husband didn't engage in a way I found hot and sexy and steamy wnough I started to get upset with my husband. I second guessed my decision to go NC. Why should I be without this excitment? If you want me to be faithful make it exciting.I was now asking my husband if he found me attractive because he never tells me anymore--- The AP was all over me asking for pictures and looking through the pictures i posted and liking them and being very specific about whT HE WANTED to do.

suddenly my husband was boring. I remember feeling after DDay with my husband that he had been putting me in a competiotion I didn't know I was in and the AP knew and was winning. You gave her the cheat sheet and tested me and I was failing.

I so easily did the same thing. I wanted my husband to swoop in and be assertive and sweep me off my feet and he did not. so he had a loss he didn't even know he was racking up.

11. I am no contact and so depressed about being without the ego kibbles all the pain of betrayak has come flooding back.

12. All of me wants that feeling the AP gave me and the scary part is I don't think i can feel that excitement again from my husband.Not because i don't love him....but because It's hard to replicate the excitement of something new.

13. I'm missing that I am no longer receiving the electricity sparks from each alert on my phone. Coupled with the fact that my husband betryaed me and there is a little sting there I am freaking out.

14. My husband and I have great sex even to this day but the reality of what I have in my bed has been corrupted by what I anticipate in my head with the AP.

To the Waywards out there how log will i be in this place since i started NC? I wish the idea of it in my head wasn't built up like I'm missing something. How long will i feel a lost opportunity?

He really isn’t an ex- we never dated but he was someone I had history with and there was mutual attraction that was never acted on.

Have you told your husband yet about your EA?

Did you completely block the OM on on social media platforms and from your text/call numbers?

There was no feeling of a lost opportunity with the om, but a lost opportunity with my husband.

Yes, it is different because he didn't have an affair before I did, so I don't know everything that you are feeling. I do think you are in limerence, but not necessarily with the man. You're in limerence with the idea of having something new and exciting. You can have that with your husband if you really want to. You two can have a whole new marriage if that's what you truly want. You can once again feel those sparks when your husband texts you. You can feel those butterflies in your stomach when you see or when you're about to kiss. You can blush when he lightly brushes up against you. You can feel all that excitement again with your husband, if you allow yourself. I'm sure it would take a LOT of work, but I think it could happen. But you have to want that with him.

[This message edited by LifeDestroyer at 8:54 PM, December 7th (Monday)]

I will read more about limerance.....I think you’re right that it’s the feeling.....but also maybe because I think it was a missed opportunity with this guy from 20 years ago.

Thank you for replying I needed it.

To the Waywards out there how log will i be in this place since i started NC? I wish the idea of it in my head wasn't built up like I'm missing something. How long will i feel a lost opportunity?

It's not that it goes away, I think, it's that like any relationship - as time passes it dims and we have a different perspective on it. And (as I mentioned in another thread) it never disappears. Like all of our experiences, we carry it with us.

I removed myself from the affair and broke contact because it was an addiction and had a detrimental effect on myself and my life. Not because I thought I could just forget about me and her.

Mickie,

As we move through the various stages there is much to be learnt from reading the ashes on the floor so to speak.

You had a strong urge for some time for a revenge affair, while still trying to understand why your BH had an A. I also get the sense you are a strong willed woman and you hated that he seemed to get one on you.

But,

I wonder whether you need to do some digging here.

I am not going to try to read through all your posts, so I am posing this question for you to consider, you don't need to respond:

Would you say your M was good before the A. Think long on this one. Were you 2 really connected or just comfortable with each other, or living together out of necessity?

I can't speak for others, but I'll give you my background:

The hot and heavy and fluttery feeling with my AP lasted about a month, and then it started to morph into day to day stuff. Seriously, most of the A involved my bitching about life to my AP, her trying to get me over to have sex. Yes she pushed boundaries with sex and tried to do whatever, I went along as it was new and exciting and I didn't care about her so going along with her offer of anal, or spanking was no problem for me. But then over time that too went away. See life gets in the way of the fantasy.

Lost opportunity. Yeah. I think that is part of a lot of A's. I recall my friends chalking it up as a mid-life crisis. Now back to the regularly scheduled program. I didn't buy that as it seemed like an excuse. But in a way it has merit - there is that wanting something we feel we have lost, or wanting to escape our responsibilities or dealing with life.

I give Mrs. Clean a lot of credit here - she was determined that if we were to R, that we wre not going back to same old M. We lost our way as a couple.

We started to hold hands again. And we started to kiss (I mean full on tongue down the back of my throat kisses) and we go to bed together, and we talk and we go on dates, and yes we added some toys to our bedroom, and discovered how helpful lube can be. But we did that together. It took one of us (it was Mrs. Clean) to put this up as an essential for R and M - To fall in love again.

Here is the part that hurts me today - I confided in my AP, and opened up about things and sex - that at the time I wanted to do with my wife, but was too afraid to approach her and talk about.

So, you will feel a lost opportunity as long as you don't work on the things that are wrong in your life.

Right now though, you are like a smoker who just quit - you need to go through the withdrawal.

Thank you for responding Mr.Cleanslate. I feel as though this experience sheds light on things my husband could possibly have been feeling.

What you have written is pretty much true, all of it.

What you don't have is the perspective after time has passed and you have worked on yourself. It's hard to see it right now but this is all pointing to one thing: You need to take control of your own happiness. Figure out how to light yourself up. Do the work that means you will be able to cope and be happy no matter what. It's difficult to see at the point you are at how much of this is about loving yourself. There are events for most of us in WS where we got to the painful place you are in. Many of us got ourselves there. For you, and my husband, you guys were thrown there. But, the decisions ended up being the same, just like the remedies are the same. Start with IC. Take some inventory of your internal world.

This temporary high thing is far overrated. I know how desperate it makes you feel when you have been barren of joy for so long. It does all happen very quickly because that's what quick fixes do. But, just like any other quick fix it soon finds you more and more broken because you can't slap a bandaid or another person on this situation.

When you get a hold of yourself, and your life, and you learn what lights you up and you make yourself responsible for your own happiness the emphasis on how you think this other person makes you feel will die. You will see this is not about the other person at all, that this is you still lighting yourself up by creating this drama/chaos/fantasy that you have going on in your head. It's not likely this man you want, but the high feelings of an affair. Noone will ever sustain that for you, and I can assure you that you do not want to just leap from affair to affair to feel this way all the time.

It will take a little bit of time, but you can find reconnection and excitement with your husband again, if you want to. That's the problem, you started this at a time that he has also given you every reason not to really want to. I suspect you are trying to have an exit affair without realizing that's what you are doing. I have been there and done that. There is no knight in shining armor. The only person who can save yourself is you.

Lifedestroyer-

I have not told my husband.

AP called me from a different number .....I pick up all foreign numbers. I will stop now because it turned me upside down to hear from him.

Hiking out it is true.....

I think it was an exit affair for me as he was showing me his house in the mountains where we could “escape” . It sounded wonderful. I have to keep telling myself now how upsetting it was for me that my husband spent so much time with a person who didn’t care about the people he lived and would die for but then look at me???!?!

I was so upset that she was pressuring him to blow his life up to be with her and look at me?!? This man isn’t thinking of me as a whole person and he’s certainly not worth leaving my family for!

Mickie,

Hi! allow me to introduce you to what I affectionately call the "lying junkie mind."

Of course, it feels really good and you might be screaming for a hit. I hear you. I get it.

My hair turned white when I went through withdrawal. In my 30s.

If you can figure out what starts the process? what thing starts it rolling? it will help. Maybe you pass a place that reminds you or maybe a certain song plays. Whatever it is, stop it.

Go a different way. Change the channel.

Uncomfortable and unable are not the same thing.

Remember that.

Post here when you are jonesing. It will help. I'm here. We all are. This isn't really about your xAP. But you can uncover what it IS about later. Just get through withdrawal first.