SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

That said, it is clear she was/is unwilling to submit to the OP...or worse, she doesn't want to want to submit to the OP...or even worse than that, her AP/affair has poisoned that well permanently.

I got the impression that AN wants a more vibrant SL with his W, but I didn't pick up that he wants a D/S relationship.

AN, do you want a D/S relationship?

Lurking,

They were all friends. They knew each other before.

He just knew the legs comment.

There were probably lots of little interactions that built up to this.

This guy was a predator that targeted his wife.

His last post.

He got disinterested. Covid got in the way of the sex and without the sex he did not like talking with her.

That opened her eyes a little to who he really was along with the forced distance and the counselor was able to get reality into her head.

I got the impression that AN wants a more vibrant SL with his W, but I didn't pick up that he wants a D/S relationship.

AN, do you want a D/S relationship?

In fairness, I don't think he is necessarily looking for a D/S relationship, either. That said, her refusal to submit herself to him is certainly a part in why she insists on a vanilla sex life.

Confused282: this could also be true. OP does have all the text conversations that happened between his wife and her AP. Those messages could shed a lot a light on whether she had feelings for him or not. I don't know whether OP believes her claim that she didn't find her AP attractive and actually disliked him. We also don't know whether 'I love you' were shared or not between them. We also don't know whether they were texting like teenage lovers or it was all just purely sexual. Only OP has answers for them.

Hiking out: As per one of the OPs recent posts, her affair started the moment her AP made comment on her 'sexy legs'. From that moment on it was all EA until it became physical few months later. So, affair did seem to have started instantly, rather than gradually.

I was referring to the physical affair. The context being that GoldenR is under the belief there was something about the ap that inspired her to go wild and it’s something AN doesn’t have. I think that would actually be a rare case, and would happen more often to men than women.

I just don’t think that’s true a big portion of the time. Usually it’s more like this person had proximity and over time an emotional bond forms and then sex happens.

In other words Her emotional portion of the affair went on seven times longer than mine did. And I had no real attraction to him other than how the whole thing made me feel. I think I am one of the most common cases there is in that way.

My husband AP worked for us for over four years when his affair began. She is not only an unattractive person externally but she is loud, talks way too much, smokes (which he hates), and is also an opportunist. She wanted a better lifestyle basically.

No one will ever convince me he looked at her and thought "yeah I want some of that". It was more, he opened up to her in his terrible state and began to see her as a confidant. She kept telling him that I didn’t deserve him (she wasn’t wrong at that time) and the more they crossed the boundaries the more unfolded. But after that it was all mostly just sex. The AP’s spouse told me that she thought my husband was her soul mate whereas, I think my husband was relieved when it was over. He didn’t want anything more to do with her. He showed no signs of confusion whatsoever.

It’s not often the ap has a lot more usually. It’s the ws escapism that is propelling the biggest majority of ongoing affairs.

hikingout: agreed. But there is something I want to ask. It is quite possible that this guy may not be the first guy who made a move on her. If she did have many pursuers before her AP then it's obvious that she rejected all those guys. But, when AP made his move, she couldn't say no to his advances. So, what changed now? And, Why him? OP has not indicated through his posts so far that she was going through some personal crisis that may have positioned her vulnerable for APs advances.

You might also have had many pursuers before your AP. If true, then you rejected all of them but not AP. Why?

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 9:31 PM, Tuesday, March 21st]

Same thing for me. Going to therapy before I confessed caused me to see everything a lot differently by the time I confessed.

There were two truths, one that I thought as it was happening, and the one I could see with clarity after having some benefit of therapy.

I am not sure she is lying but I maybe not spending enough time evaluating what was happening at the time versus seeing it for what it was. In IC they want you to remain in your current perspective because that one is more reliable to work with.

Based on Mr. AN's recent posts, I do think HO has it more or less right. Mrs. AN has heavy baggage around her sexuality, probably mostly due to FOO and the religion of her upbringing. But inside of her, deeply repressed, was a more florid sexuality. The circumstances with the AP triggered something in her caused her to release it, like a dam bursting, but since this was all new to her, she didn't understand what she was releasing or experiencing.

Still and all, there is the esoteric question of "did she really love him?" Or, bigger horizon, does any WS ever truly love any AP? HO, and some of the other WW's on here, say "no, it was all fake." I do know that the memory can and does re-organize and re-orientate information in hindsight in ways that cast different views on it.

Here is an anecdote from my personal life. I grew up in a small town within an environment of heavy-handed Evangelical religion. Very repressive of sexuality. I was rather shy in those years, a shoe-gazing nerd. Not exactly a guy with game. I did get a girlfriend at age 16 whom I lost my virginity to, but she was not from our religious circle and she was the aggressor and initiator. During those years, I knew another girl, also from religious groups, but she was from a big city far away. She had family in my small town and we met when she occasionally attended church functions with her local family. We started writing letters to one another. This carried on for more than a year. Starting around age 15 or so.

I only saw her occasionally, when she would visit her relatives. So each time I saw her, she looked different. Around age 17 I saw her and "BOOM!" "POW!" she had tits and ass and was stunning. About 6" taller than me. Athletic and beautiful. By then, though, she really liked me, at least in her imagination. Her letters had gradually become romantic, then suggestive, then overtly sexual. At the time, she had older sisters who were very active sexually and as far as I can tell all the sex stuff was catalyzed by a mixture of her budding adolescent horniness and hearing about the sisters' romps. When we saw each other that year she was all over me. We had crazy monkey sex. I was in way over my head. She was out of my league in terms of looks, she had what seemed to me to be "big city sophistication", and she had the confidence of a banging hot young woman whose world has become a place of easily opened doors, freely proffered gifts, and nothing but admiring looks. This continued for a couple of years, until she went off to college, at which time she broke up with me because she wanted to be unfettered to sample the goods once she got to campus. Frankly, it sort of tore me up at the time because I was head-over-heels with her, or so I thought at the time.

Several years later I was back in my home town visiting my family. I drove past the family home of her relatives (small town -- you drive past everybody's home just to get a 6-pack of beer) and saw her car out front. It was highly distinctive so I knew it was hers. I stopped and went to the front door to say hello. Honestly, I thought maybe we might have a little tryst when I saw her. I found her out back in a lounge, reading a book. In a tiny bikini. Looking as hot as I remembered. After saying hello, the conversation took a hard left turn. She told me that she was traumatized and stigmatized because she was no longer a virgin, that I had essentially ruined her in terms of being able to enter into a serious relationship with a good Christian man, and that I had been a predator who took advantage of her youth and inexperience. That she regretted everything we had done and felt really stupid.

I was stunned. I honestly didn't know how to respond (it didn't help that I was still shy and had stunted social skills). From my perspective, there was absolutely no way I seduced her. I had zero game. Strike that. I had negative game. Plus, she was miles out of my league. I'd never have tried with her even if I had wanted to. To me it was clear that she had been the aggressor and initiator, that she had pledged mountains of lust and love toward me, that she instigated our first sex and all subsequent sex, etc. To me it felt like being a kitten sucked up into a tornado of sexual lust.

In any event, I have frequently revisited that later encounter when pondering what HO and other WW's say about their A sex. In hindsight, this young woman had some kind of fantasy going on in her head, some sort of repressed sexuality or some such, and she needed a way and place to release it. I was a convenient outlet because I mostly existed as written words on the pages of a letter. In other words, mostly in her head. The real me, that was merely an avatar for the fantasy that she had built for herself. Thus, when she realized later that her fantasy had betrayed her, she externalized it and blamed it on me.

Don't know where I'm going with this precisely. I guess (a) it's an example of how the memory can reorganize information to reach a conclusion that doesn't seem facially to be supported by the visible elements, but more to the point of this thread (b) how a woman can engage in a high degree of sexual behavior based on stuff that exists pretty much completely in her head.

Edited later. I remember where I was going with this. I've often thought back to that dynamic when reading discussions here. I think that, in a way, I had an "AP-like" experience with her. She wasn't cheating on anybody, but the attraction she had to our dynamic was something that she created almost entirely in her head. I was somehow just a catalyst for it. She wanted to "become a woman" (those were her words). She had worked up all of these structures and vectors in her imagination for how that would play out. And she projected it onto me.

I would add, though, that in the process, I benefited from getting layed, big time. I derived a ton of pleasure from it. Which is a point I forgot to make in my post above outlining how the "he got more" dynamic is especially painful to a BH in scenarios like this. The WW injected energy into giving pleasure to another man. That may not have been her primary aim, but it was a result of her deliberate actions. In contrast, she has refused to inject energy into giving commensurate pleasure to her BH. This is where the injury for many BH's is too great. It's also the cornerstone of my cake baking metaphor.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 2:06 AM, Wednesday, March 22nd]

AN, congratulations on what sounds like a very productive conversation with WW. Her agreeing to exploring an enhanced level of intimacy and working with a sex therapist is a win for the two of you, bravo!

Of course she now has to act consistently but the good news is she has shown she is capable of that outside the issue of sex when pursuing R. She has a lot of progress to make but if she can leverage her effort and discipline from other areas then she may well make it!

I have to react to the "I'm not going to be a whore again" statement.... she needs to understand that she would never have felt like one if she had tried those things with you in the context of a loving marriage. Or at least she should not feel that way with you, obviously that will take some time for her to believe.

I do wonder if she was the typical Wayward, seeking attention and paying for it with any sex she had to or if she actually has a fetish for submission and she was getting that hidden need met. It could be either or maybe some of both. Kinks/fetishes can have a very strong pull and people are often ashamed of them so they avoid them until they can't anymore. Or until opportunity presents itself and they are overwhelmed.

[This message edited by Trdd at 10:58 PM, Tuesday, March 21st]

You might also have had many pursuers before your AP. If then you rejected all of them but not AP. Why?

So, this is what I mean by most women see sex as abundant whereas most men do not.
Sure, there were other guys I could have had sex with. Other dudes I told I was married, etc.

It’s usually a combo of things:
1. The sex thing sneaks up. Yeah, you might see it but think you have it under control and won’t let it get that far. But you are only denying the boundaries have already been crossed.
2. Generally speaking I had never felt so depressed and was knee deep in going through an existential crisis. Crisis is a Common factor in affairs.
3. Disconnected in my marriage, my husband was easy to ignore. We were living two different lives.
4. Kids were out of the house, I was resentful at this time and didn’t have the fortitude to just say I was unhappy and thinking of separating.

I still don’t care about banging other guys and never did in the first place. It simply wasn’t about sex for me. It was about feeling better using very poor coping mechanisms.

AN I think you have handled this great. Even though I pushed for an ultimatum (and it was never for the porn star sex) to agree to sex therapy and to open up her thinking, I’m glad it didn’t get to that. Either you pushed gently enough, or she came to her senses and realized that without that things would probably be over.

You mentioned that AP was part of various other social groups that you are in. Do you have any protections now that Covid is over that they never have contact again? It’s always a rule that this should happen, but even more so in your case. If the Dom/Sub bond is as strong as other here have mentioned, enough in this case she followed his directions for withholding sex with you and got her to do acts she thought she never would, just a chance meeting could reignite those feelings again. I would keep her on a very short leash. Do the others in your social group know what happened?

I too was someone whose wife did porn star acts with her AP. I like you for the most part wasn’t looking for them. Even so, it still pissed me off to no end. You seem like you have handled it much better than I ever did.

You have devised a really good plan. I hope she realizes how close she came to blowing up her life even more than she did.

Sorry I start typing get distracted then the conversations continue.

Hiking I wanna say you always do an amazing job as does everybody even when there is disagreement.

I would lean to they had proximity to each other. She found him cute, funny whatever it was.

Because they already had proximity to each other a small crush developed and she started showing signs of being open.

AP sensed it and started introducing sexuality into their interactions.

This got her into her head thinking about him sexually which increased her attraction.

Women increase attraction in their own heads.

There is so much to get into.

There are a lot of examples I could use not just in infidelity.

If he was just hitting on her and she told AN then the Friendship would have been over and you would almost have affair like consequences already. Example you can never speak to him again. He would be angry.

So she says nothing and the flirting continues with her thinking she can handle it but it gets her thinking. The more she thinks the more attracted she becomes.

She then gets a thrill from just a text she should not be receiving and it snowballs from there.

Telling him to fuck off at that point ruins the friendship and causes many problems, plus she enjoys it so she lets it continue.

Then they have sex and it’s all over without serious intervention. She becomes intoxicated.

That’s why drug addict analogies are often used in infidelity.

Covid saved the day in this case or it would have continued.

I’m not sure there is really a dom/sub thing going on here.

I wanted to make another post but honestly this guy is just aggressive sexually.

When I am with a woman I’m not sure I really ask for anything. I kind of just go with it and kind of ask/tell what I want and the women comply.

I’m nice so I check on them and open them up to tell me but there is no negotiation.

Then in between I tell them how hot they are and what I want to do. They do it to either because they want it or to make me happy.

I’ve been told no once in a while and respected it.

Sometimes I’ve argued and opened them up later.

But it was fluid and in the moment. Not long arguments.

In between I’ve told them they looked hot in something so they wear it more, or walked into Victoria secret with them and told them what I want to see them in. Or seen something online.

Honestly this seems like a normal relationship.

A pretty standard sexual affair.

The Covid was new development or this would have kept going But also an IC that really seemed to be an expert on infidelity. Hell AN got the second timeline with all the sexual details.

It’s like that IC got on here asked everyone here for advise and helped her.

This story is only truly unique because of how he discovered it. All the work was done. Put him in a weird predicament but no matter what it was going to be bad. This way saved him long drawn out pain before he got to this spot.

I think a sex therapist is needed here not just for her but for him. It sounds like he has problems expressing his sexuality as well.

As to why the OM and WW used middle names, it was a way to turn themselves into someone else. I would guess it was trick OM had learned or intuitively used in other similar affairs. The WW was Nancy or whatever not her first name.

It's not unlike the nicknames Mafia and MC bikers use, it baptizes or confirms someone into a secret social group.

When your WW tells you she loathed OM, does she also claim she never orgasmed with OM, I find both claims difficult to believe.

Still and all, there is the esoteric question of "did she really love him?" Or, bigger horizon, does any WS ever truly love any AP? HO, and some of the other WW's on here, say "no, it was all fake.

It extends way beyond this site. Every therapist that myself and h has ever seen say it. There are fascinating podcasts, articles, books etc that explains it.

I wouldn’t say it was fake. There were huge feelings involved. But they weren’t the normal ones, they were more about the situation and common psychology at play.

Imagine being deeply depressed and having a huge distraction from it. You are getting dopamine rushing in your brain after being at your lowest.

It’s a lot like drugs. I compare it to a gambling or shopping addiction, because the addiction is to brain chemicals. There aren’t any drugs, you started the behavior and then feel like you need it.

But it’s not about the other person other than being an audience. I actually couldn’t tell you a lot of stuff about the AP, past maybe middle school type questions. We’d withstood no trials, it was all the forbidden, romance book stuff. That stuff is not realistic.

Love is realistic, it’s abiding, it’s sacrifices and compromises. Love is just not the word for what happens in an affair. But to say there weren’t big feelings would be minimizing the issue. I absolutely had those.

Women increase attraction in their own heads.

Yes this is true for me too. But I think a lot of do that under both genders. Personality and chemistry are these nebulous things that you don’t have to be tall dark and handsome to have.

The AP in my case was funny and charismatic. He also knew all the softer things I needed to hear. So I don’t want to paint this like any of this was conscious. And some of it I would not been able to see, other things I didn’t want to see.

In the end, it’s impossible to wax poetic. But was I one of the sickos saying he was my soul mate and that we had a connection like no other? Yes, I did all the crimes.

The goal has to be getting a better marriage not from a balance sheet. You get a better marriage because you start again with two wiser people. I have corrected so many things about myself that enable me to have a stronger connection with everything- myself, my husband, my kids, my friends. We have a better marriage because we have two greatly improved people.

That’s the measurement. In his case, obviously the sex is lackluster and as by most standards far less than even being vanilla. I am glad she is willing to work on this. I do not know anything about the dom/sub culture to comment if that’s an addition hurdle or not.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:51 AM, Wednesday, March 22nd]

I'm wishing the best for AN and his WW. I am hopeful.

T/j

Hiking I wanna say you always do an amazing job as does everybody even when there is disagreement.

100% this.

You are so patient and thorough in your explanations, HikingOut. And I always agree with your analysis of the way this whole thing breaks down. I appreciate your contributions. I'm sure AspectNorth does, as well.

End t/j

It extends way beyond this site. Every therapist that myself and h has ever seen say it. There are fascinating podcasts, articles, books etc that explains it.

I wouldn’t say it was fake. There were huge feelings involved. But they weren’t the normal ones, they were more about the situation and common psychology at play.

Imagine being deeply depressed and having a huge distraction from it. You are getting dopamine rushing in your brain after being at your lowest.

I'm mindful that explaining a thing is not the same as excusing a thing. In my work, I have had exposure to multiple instances of people in high places caught embezzling. Embezzling almost always begins with innocent intentions. Most embezzlers do not set out to steal. At first it's just a dip into the till that they intend to replace. Then the good feeling of the extra money sets in, and it grows. In the process, most embezzlers tell themselves an ever-growing trail of fictions and fantasies to justify, excuse, or mischaracterize their behavior. Most also report some version of a dopamine high at the illicit stuff they purchase with the filthy lucre.

In the end, intent and motivation is irrelevant. Embezzling is a crime with victims who are injured. Therefore, embezzlers are punished regardless of intent or motivation.

Infidelity is a species of embezzling. A wicked act that steals from the marriage. In a great many instances, there are multiple victims. Many who are innocents who should not be asked to endure these things: spouse, children, OBS, OBS's children, social friends. Mr. AN would be fully justified, today or next week or next year, in walking away from the marriage, regardless of any efforts by Mrs. AN toward healing, solely because of the scope and magnitude of the damage she chose to inflict upon these victims in the vicinity of their marriage. As I have said many times, sometimes the injury to the BH is just too great.

HO has suggested a potential path to healing, and Mr. AN's post suggest that Mrs. AN has at least agreed verbally to take the first baby step along that path. They are two years out from Dday and, to my understanding she has not actually yet taken even the first baby step. I am mindful that her previous vehement statements are diametrically inconsistent with any intent in this regard. Today is the Vernal Equinox. I would be interested to hear whether there is any improvement in the marital bedroom by, say, Halloween (Samhain), or Ground Hog's Day (Imbolc). My money is that it will either be none, or incrementally insignificant. If there is effort toward improvement, Mr. AN will likely encounter mind movies of Mrs. AN sexually with the AP, which will impact his ability to summon up desire. I hope it works for them, but my logical mind says the odds are low.

Mr. AN does not owe Mrs. AN any effort, nor does Mrs. AN deserve any such effort. Fundamentally, what Mrs. AN is asking Mr. AN to do is continue in a marriage with her despite the fact that she decided to inflict a grievous wrong upon him. Make no mistake that it was a decision, not an accident. Betrayed spouses who do reconcile confer an incredible gift of grace upon their WS, one that is wholly undeserved and inures solely by virtue of the ability of the human spirit to love and to forgive. I hope Mrs. AN realizes that.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 12:22 PM, Wednesday, March 22nd]

AN

There has been lots of discussion as to WW’s possible motivations for the A, and while I don’t pretend to understand her thinking and internal justifications, I can describe the evolution of the A, and how it progressed, and then finally imploded.

AN, one thing for sure with this whole episode, is that you've had the curtain pulled back on the inner workings of your fellow human. If you can manage to defer all of the emotion related to her actions and answers, and just truly un-know as much as you can and watch her and see her as she actually is and not as you think she is, there will be a lot to learn. She is giving you a lesson in what makes humans tick. Her, and yourself.

The forensic effort to get to the WW's motivations (really, their preferences at that moment) is pretty much a fool's dream, I've come to think. This is based on the science of how us humans operate. Not how we think we operate, how we actually operate. She will come up with some motivations now that you are digging into this, but they are being made up, not dug up. Being made up in real time. Invented. Probably not a bad exercise to go through to build some sort of narrative that makes them a one-time shameful thing that helps ensure they don't happen again, but I'd be loath to base anything important on their truth.

A killer book to read, that kind of blows away a lot of the thinking on this stuff is The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater. You can google on it and get much of the gist from reviews online. Read the one from the Inverted Passion blog. If you accept the model that the author puts forward, then you have to recognize a lot of her digging is actually inventing. This isn't a failing in her approach, it is how we work. There is nothing to dig up.

If you understand that, than it changes the flow. Inventing isn't bad, if it leads to the right outcome.

Another good book is How Emotions Are Made by Lisa Barrett. If you accept the science, you have to change how you are thinking about the situation. Reading these books, you can set them down and look at your wife and say, "Yep, there it is."

There are maybe 200+ posts in this thread. Whew! Thought I'd give you a different angle to ponder.

Sending strength!

Wwtl,

I share some of your concerns. I do not see much of a difference between OP giving an ultimatum to do something or give an ultimatum where they go to therapy so they will do the same thing.

The larger concern is adding another therapist who can undo the work her IC is doing or cause conflict in treatment.

I do like that OP is standing up for himself and drawing a line in the sand.

Hikingout:

Agreed that women find sex in abundance. In the case of men, sex is scarce. Because of scarcity, men are mostly not picky in this area. They take what they get. Even if they don't find particular women attractive or relation types, they still pursue them for affair. But, since women are picky, they just don't let any man in who comes knocking at their door unless there are some external factors like loneliness, depression, crisis, etc are at play here. In your case, there was an external factor. And you did feel your AP was your 'soul mate'. If OPs wife was not going through any crisis, then why did she let him in. It's possible that she did find him attractive and likable, at least in the beginning. That 'You won' comment really contradicts her claim that she didn't find him attractive and likable. If her claim was true, then, in her eyes, he shouldn't be competing against her husband to win her. Why did he lose? Was it because she later realized he was just using her as his sexual outlet and never cared about her? Or because she realized that if her husband loses, then she will lose a lot?

1. The sex thing sneaks up. Yeah, you might see it, but I think you have it under control and won’t let it get that far. But you are only denying the boundaries have already been crossed.

That sneaking upon happens once you fail to establish strong boundaries. You firmly established your boundaries against your previous pursuers, and hence, this "sneaking upon" never occurred with them. But, with AP, you didn't establish strong boundaries. That allowed the sex to sneak up. May be you found this guy particularly attractive and 'more than a friend' material while previous pursuers didn't evoke such feelings in you. Or may be it was the external factor that didn't exist before when you were dealing with previous pursuers.

My point is, if there was no external factor in this case, then why didn't Mrs.Asp establish strong boundaries against her AP in the first place? She did establish boundaries against her previous pursuers if there were any pursuers before. She must have found him somewhat attractive to blur her boundaries against him. But she claims the opposite.

Basically, her "You won" comment clearly contradicts her "never found him likable and attractive" comment. OP should clarify what she really meant by her "You won" comment.

The context being that GoldenR is under the belief there was something about the ap that inspired her to go wild and it’s something AN doesn’t have.

I don't think it's something AN doesn't have. Not at all. My only point was that I think she was attracted to him being that one comment to her was all it took to get her hooked.

For the less attractive guys, they usually have to work harder than that to get anywhere.

How the saying go? "If they're hot, they're flirting with you. If they're ugly they're sexually harassing you."