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It’s been appx 1.5 years since we started R and it is going well for the most part. He is "different" than he was prior to A. He is more attentive to me and to our relationship. I can definitely sense that he’s trying and wanting our M to work. There have been many solid and positive changes since we started R. HOWEVER, i can’t get over what if he is keeping his AP in a special place in his heart? What if he’s secretly thinking of his time with her fondly? What if he’s secretly wishing he could still be with her but knows that’s not the best option so he’s staying with me? I don’t have any reasons to believe this. But it’s also hard to believe that one can have a 2 year highly sexual and emotional relationship with someone and just cut them out of their hearts. Wouldn’t there be some residual feelings, pining, yearning, etc?

I did address this issue with WH and he says he doesn’t think about AP except when I bring her up. He says what he did was wrong and AP was not a good person. He knew he should have ended it with her early but he was infatuated with her. He saw her through rose colored glasses and he no longer has any feelings for her, either good or bad. He wants to just forget about her and move on.

I don’t know what I am looking to hear from WH. I don’t 100% believe what he says and whatever he says won’t ever be good enough to ease my mind.

[This message edited by cedarwoods at 5:26 PM, Thursday, February 22nd]

I don’t know what I am looking to hear from WH. I don’t 100% believe what he says and whatever he says won’t ever be good enough to ease my mind.

I am in the same situation. I can tell you this and hope it gives you some consolation "You cannot now and you couldn't in the past and you will never be able to know what exactly goes through your spouse's mind."

The ONLY way you can be sure is.... if you do not have ANY relationship. ONLY THEN nobody can hurt you or betray you. ARe you ready to be on your own for good because those are your fears?

I had ever thought in my life that betrayal could affect us. We had dreams, we had values, we felt we could trust each other. How wrong I was. And I came to terms that even if my husband hadn't betrayed me, that should have been a possibility I should have considered. You can only be betrayed if you love.

So with these considerations you will never know and that is the mystery of love and relationship. You can only do your best on your part and hope your spouse does the same on their side.

TO THOSE WHO ARE CERTAIN THEIR SPOUSE DOES NOT CONTACT THE ex AP ANYMORE, I am sorry but NOBODY CAN BE SURE. You can be sure they don't meet if they are in locations where it is impossible to go to or if you know where BOTH are all the time. They were able to keep their whole relationship secret and if they WANT, they can still do it now. You can only do your best and HOPE and TRUST they will be doing the same on their side.

Just live your life without this nightmare and if things go for the worst you can always say "I did my best, I am not the person who spoiled and destroyed our marriage".

[This message edited by Molly65 at 5:43 PM, Thursday, February 22nd]

Molly
Thanks for your reply. Your words are true and wise.
You are 100% right about us not knowing what’s in someone’s head or whether they are still in contact with the AP or not.
It’s a frigging lose lose situation.
If i check his phone and i don’t see evidence of contact with the AP, that wouldn’t ease my mind because I would be thinking he must have deleted the messages, the AP’s contact is under some obscure name that he changes regularly, he has a secret app that i don’t really know about, etc. There are a million ways for them to "keep in touch" with the AP. It’s enough to drive me crazy. So I don’t go there. I can’t win.

You can’t know as has been already discussed. Also 18 months in it’s still going to take you time to wrestle with trust issues, it’s completely normal and justified.

I can say with certainty I had an addiction to AP. It was really bad but even so 18 months out I had realized that we used each other and everything was imaginary. I wanted very much to win my husband back. I missed him, me, and us and knew I had been a fool to throw it all away. I don’t know if it’s helpful to hear that or not, I am not him. But I was not going around thinking of the ap as something I lost, I was thanking my lucky stars that it ended.

So my advice is just keep watching his actions, and working on your healing. Remind yourself it’s normal not to trust so soon, but what your goals are in staying. And keep being honest with yourself

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:07 PM, Thursday, February 22nd]

Hiking Out
Thank you for your reply. I’ve read almost one of your posts and I can’t tell you how much they have helped me. Especially the ones in ask the waywards forum. You gave me a glimpse into my WH’s head and I was able to find some empathy/understanding for WH. It has helped with my healing and our R in general. Thank you for the time you give here on SI and for your honesty and transparency.

I am glad if it helps one person. This stuff is so hard and unnervingly avoidable in the first place.

Cedarwoods "But it’s also hard to believe that one can have a 2 year highly sexual and emotional relationship with someone and just cut them out of their hearts. Wouldn’t there be some residual feelings, pining, yearning, etc?"

I don't know about you, but I had previous relationships before I met my husband, and I can tell you that I absolutely do not hold residual feelings for them. None of my ex-partners did anything wrong (apart from one who was abusive), my feelings just faded. Yet there was a time when I felt madly in love with them. I just don't now.

Chuck in that your husband now has his eyes open to the fact that the AP was truly not a good person, I think its highly likely he has no feelings for her at all. Also, let's not forget affairs are often based on fantasy and projection.

I would be inclined to believe what he is telling you.

Whiskeyblues
I agree with much of what you are saying. However, I wonder if affair relationships are somehow different than normal dating relationship? I dated a couple of guys prior to getting married but they were nothing serious. Therefore, I don’t know what it’s like to break up from a (long term) highly charged serious relationship where you exchange I Love You’s, etc.
i’ve read that the power of limerance is very strong and intoxicating and makes it very difficult for the those involved in an affair to break it off. In addition, WS was willing to give up everything to be with the AP which leads me to believe WS’s feelings for the AP must have incredibly potent. What goes on during an affair just doesn’t seem similar to your run of the mill dating relationship. There’s obsession, infatuation, addiction, etc.
I would love to hear your thoughts!

Ah, cedarwoods, have a virtual (((hug))).

"However, I wonder if affair relationships are somehow different than normal dating relationship?"

They are HUGELY different. They're shrouded in secrecy, lies, betrayal. In a normal relationship you start off getting to know one another, eventually introduce your new partner to family and friends, increase the amount of time together gradually and begin to build a life TOGETHER. The relationship grows and blossoms into something stable and real.

In an affair, people people are pretending to be something they're not. They lie to each other. They play characters. They keep each other hidden from family and friends. They have to meet in irregular locations, so they're not spotted. They have limited time together, so every second counts. Nothing about it is normal. My WH explained it as feeling as though they were Bonnie and Clyde, like it was them against the world (and I suppose in some way it was, because they weren't living in the real world - their real worlds would be against them).

The thing is though, once a torch is shone on the affair and it's exposed, the masks start to slip - once reality sets in (which for some take a while). The WS has to face who they are and who the AP is.

If your WH is truly remorseful, and it sounds like he is, I think its perfectly plausible that he has no residual feelings for the AP. I'd find it hard to have any positive feelings towards the worst thing I've ever done in my life, even if at the time I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

My WH actually left myself and our two young children for the AP, after knowing her for a few weeks. He came back a week later. To say he was obsessed with her is an understatement. But bringing his AP into the light shone a torch on his choices (forced by his own hand); who she really was, the fact they had absolutely nothing in common, what his life was now going to be, how he missed even just talking with me. He says he just then felt flat. Like an anti-climax. Suddenly they were a "real" couple, and the excitement dialled down to zero.

Suffice to say he has no residual feelings for her. All he's left with is disgust and shame.

Gently, it takes a lot more than a year and a half to get comfortable. IMO, it's pretty easy to fake it for 2 years, but hard to fake for 5 years - IMO. Even so, we see a lot of members return after 5 years because R turned out to be false - so 5 years isn't enough to be a reliable rule.

I'm 13+ years out, so I've got a long history of a joyful M since d-day. I trust and love my W more than I trust or love anyone else. I am as confident as I can be that my W told the truth on d-day that she wanted to stay together; I've felt that way for about 10 years. IOW, it took me 3.5-4 years to accept that W meant what she said and showed me for that time (and has showed me since then, too).

Consistent behavior over time will tell you what you want to know. I know that's not a satisfying answer. R can be scary. It is definitely risky - but so is D and life in general. I asked myself every day for those 1st 3.5-4 years if I wanted to end R, and I never did. The knowledge that I chose every day to be in R helped me with the fear of failing and other uncertainties.

If you don't stifle yourself, if you stay in touch with what your H does and says verbally and non-verbally, you'll know eventually.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:34 PM, Friday, February 23rd]

But it’s also hard to believe that one can have a 2 year highly sexual and emotional relationship with someone and just cut them out of their hearts. Wouldn’t there be some residual feelings, pining, yearning, etc?

This is one of the hardest things to deal with as BS.

Unless you have been a WS who has done this type of thing, I don't think you can ever quite understand their thinking process around the AP and the affair.

Not every WS has exactly the same type of thinking, and every affair is different in some way, just as every affair is the same in some way, but this "compartmentalization" in the psyche of the WS about these things is something that you simply may never get.

This "ability", for lack of a better word, may be the reason the cheating occurs in the first place.

I do t think it’s compartmentalization that allows the ws to quickly or gradually remove their feelings from the AP.

Everyone has the ability to compartmentalize. We compartmentalize all sorts of things, it’s simply just an ability to focus on what’s in front of you instead of thinking about all that isn’t. People might be going through a divorce but when they are doing their favorite hobby they might find peace. It’s really just the ability to put something away for a little while.

Ws simply use their compartmentalization to focus on the ap when they are with ap and the bs when they are with bs. It’s not a special skill, it’s just one that we all have to use for good or bad.

And men seem to have this skill more than women but maybe it’s because women tend to carry the mental load of the household more often. Now that traditional relationship roles are starting to go away more and more we will find that men might start thinking at work what they need to make for dinner or get from the store on the way home.

I think it’s more about attachment. The attachment to the fantasy for some evaporates the minute their bs knows. They are no longer able to engage in the damaging thinking because it’s not in its own bubble anymore. They were never leaving their bs and in their mind this other person was just -n extra cherry on top. They aren’t super attached in the first place.

For an addictive affair like I had, it doesn’t evaporate because the need for the brain chemicals override everything. Just like the need to drink may cause damage that you can see but can’t engage in because it means giving up the drink. Most people with this kind of thinking have abandonment issues and usually a history of delusional unrequited love. We see love as suffering in many ways, if there is no chaos there is no passion. Easy to have is maybe not as worth having. It stems from not believing we are lovable and anyone who would love us must really not know us.

And these are grand generalizations, with a whole lot of grey in real life applications. But you have the ability to compartmentalize too. Everyone does.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:38 PM, Saturday, February 24th]

I grew up with an abusive mother that also caused me to question how much I was loved, how much I mattered, my value--all of it. And after lots and lots of IC, I landed on a mindset that has carried me through separation, infidelity, severed friendships, and family drama: if we truly love and appreciate ourselves, we do not spend so much time and energy and effort thinking about how important we are to others.

If you are watching a WS who is working hard, invested, learning and growing, and treating you well now, then it becomes easier to stay in the M and appreciate that you are currently getting your needs met. Period. If you really love yourself, really KNOW that you are special and anyone would be lucky to have you or sorry to lose you, definitely enjoy the time you spend with yourself and with friends, enjoy doing hobbies, enjoy pets, enjoy nature, or being with other family, then wondering how a WS "feels" (which, do they even know?) becomes . . . unimportant, not the measurement of your real joy whatsoever. No matter what, you will be fine because you still get to be you.

Is he treating you well right now? Is he doing work that makes you feel valued? Great. Spend all your remaining energy on you! Who do you want to be? How do you want to spend your time? What would bring you joy and fill you up? Do it! Do everything for yourself to remind yourself of how valuable and special you are! His feelings? Who cares. He obviously had no clue anyway. If he is treating you now like the gift that you are, then that's all you need to know. Hang tight to his actions and your boundaries. The rest of your love comes from what you know and value about yourself! So work on that, not on analyzing his thoughts. Your opinion of you is far more important than his anyway. And I believe that when people's actions are on point, that is as loved as we CAN feel from others. The rest comes from us.

This way of thinking has brought me so much peace and joy. It has been a buffer against any hurtful thing that has come my way in the last 12 to 15 years. There is nothing more important than the way I love myself.

Best wishes.

The attachment to the fantasy for some evaporates the minute their bs knows.

This is a good point, possibly a viewpoint difference only.

I have thought about this event upon discovery as being the "ability to maintain the compartmentalization" collapsing when exposure occurs. As it is hard to compartmentalize when the wall between the fantasy secret side life and your responsible main life get breached. I'm sure the brain chemistry changes abruptly.

Most people with this kind of thinking have abandonment issues and usually a history of delusional unrequited love. We see love as suffering in many ways, if there is no chaos there is no passion. Easy to have is maybe not as worth having. It stems from not believing we are lovable and anyone who would love us must really not know us.

4 years of MC with my FWS revealed this to be her general mode of thinking.

Her affair, in some ways, was a fantastical escape from the fear of abandonment that was always there in the marriage and her FOO life in general. Medication, alcohol, and marijuana all combined with mental health issues all combined to play a role in triggering the event.

When all was said and done, affair over, alcohol and marijuana gone, medications changed, the fear of abandonment and self perception you point out remained (still remains).

Her FOO members, without exception, had very chaotic "love" relationships exclusively.

There is so much wisdom what has been shared here. Thank you so much to all those who have responded!

OwningitNow

What you say here is eye opening!

if we truly love and appreciate ourselves, we do not spend so much time and energy and effort thinking about how important we are to others

I think about people in my life who are very sure of themselves and don’t give a hoot what others think and they do truly love themselves. Some of them to the point of delusion. They have a sense of confidence and self esteem that are enviable. I need to get to that place.

HikingOut:
You hit the nail on the head when you said " Most people with this kind of thinking have abandonment issues and usually a history of delusional unrequited love.". My WH was abandoned as a teenager and he never really healed from it.

Cedarwoods,

I agree with you that the wisdom that is shared in this post is outstanding. I am often so impressed by the intelligence and introspection of many of the members here.

I’m sorry to t/j but I just want to commend the depth of thinking that many of the people who post show and to thank them for continuing to share.

I don’t have any reasons to believe this. But it’s also hard to believe that one can have a 2 year highly sexual and emotional relationship with someone and just cut them out of their hearts. Wouldn’t there be some residual feelings, pining, yearning, etc?

I completely understand where you are coming from.
For me it has been more than 4 years and I still feel the same. It wasn't only sex. But I can assure you it wasn't LOVE. Nowadays it is getting really easy to divorce. If he really thought she was the one, he would be with her, believe me!! Nobody, especially people who feel entitled like cheaters do, would ever give up what they have as the dearest person in their heart. Why would they? They are not monks or nuns able to make sacrifices. They are selfish bast***s. If he could get rid of her, it's because she was not important, she was an addition to his life.

I have thought many times about the meaning of an extramarital relationship. If it is a way to create an new life with that person, they make sure it does happen, nothing will stop them. However most of the time an affair is a journey of selfishness an ego thing and the other man or woman is just a TOOL to feel they are still attractive, they can, they are important for someone who validates them. It is not about the other "wonderful" person, it is not about their "dull" spouse, it is ALL ABOUT THEMSELVES. They need a "bubble" out of time and responsibilities in which the centre is THEMSELVES, THEIR EGO.

You even have feelings for your home, your cat, your clothes but does it mean you love them dearly? NOPE! They love how these "tools" make them feel, so what they really miss is not them as people, (I repeat, if they were really the person they wanted they would be with them, period), they miss how they made them feel, entitled, attractive, desirable, important, because they stroked their EGO.

So I can't tell you if your husband really loves you, but SURELY he doesn't LOVE the other woman. Maybe he is unable to love in general and that is also something that is hard to accept. If there have been positive changes and these changes persists in time, just enjoy them.

They also have to grieve their absence and I am sure he thinks of the many happy moments they had with a bit of nostalgia. Accept that, it is all normal. Do not make you husband the centre of your life. Make yourself the centre. Make your choices according to what is convenient and important to you. Don't stick to ideals because you could get very hurt.

Molly
Your words are very true and wise. I hate that my WH may possibly be thinking back to the good times during the A. But it is what it is, I suppose.
My story is a bit sticky because my WH did not cut out the AP out immediately on Dday and professed his commitment and love to me. Instead, he left me for the AP post Dday. He sat on the fence and struggled to break free from the AP for a few months. He was miserable during those months though. He drank a lot, didn’t sleep, and according to him his relationship with the AP was unhealthy and toxic. But he kept going back to her. I wonder if this is him trying to make it work with her. Then the AP dumped him in a cruel way and we started the R process 6 months later. So i feel like I was always plan B and that if AP had not ended it, he might still be with her. He says he didn’t want a future with her but he didn’t know how to free himself because he was "infatuated" with her. This just all sucks. Why did she have so much power over him?