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GEL and Lil,

Thanks very much for your lovely e-mails to me. Really nice to hear from you both like that. I just want to say that I very much appreciated your messages but have decided definitely to adopt a strict, no exceptions policy of not communicating off board with people I've not met IRL.

Lil, it was interesting to hear about your fun experiences when visiting Britain. It would be great to hook up if you ever come over the pond again. I am certainly not averse to making contact with new friends.

GEL, nice to hear about your weekend. We've had a heatwave here too. It's been in the 90s all week, finally had some rain on Sunday which cooled things down. We brought our new cocker spaniel pup home last monday so the weekend was full of fun-filled puppy related activities! The kids are reallly enjoying bonding with pup and I'm really enjoying learning how to behave as pack leader More on that elsewhere (maybe Cobra's thread)

LFL, you have made the right decision - very best of luck to you. We'll miss you but we'll get over it

see ya

Fran

Hi Fran

A pup huh? That should be fun...my folks are getting ready to bring home two Dacshund (sp?) puppies...should be interesting with their house full of cats LOL.

We have 2 Weimeraner's at our house (our girls) and they're lots of fun!!!

GEL

Chrome,

I have been mulling over what to say. I am sorry that things have gone from bad to worse in your situation. I urge you to follow Nops advice - you cannot simultaneously work on your M and spend emotional energy on other women, even "friends". Things are just prone to getting out of control. Recognize it and do something about it. The best of luck to you, Mrs. Chrome and the little ones.

LFL,

The best of luck to you. I'm sorry you have not found what you were looking for here or in your M.

Karen

All,

I decided to check back in just in case people had something to say to me. I don't want anyone to think I don't appreciate every bit of advice you have given me, even if I was sabotaging its effectiveness by my actions. I do think in some ways, I am a better person than I was a year ago. But in the most important ways, I am not. So I am going to start seeing my C more regularly, I'm going to set up MC sessions with someone my C suggested, and start going even if my W doesn't want to (hopefully only at first), get on medications and stay on them, and do everything I can to "reframe" my life (as BF puts it) as a devoted H who will do EVERYTHING necessary to make sure my W knows it. I think it is probably unhealthy to spend my entire life not having women friends, but I need to recognize that where I am now I have trouble keeping appropriate boundaries. Maybe sometime in the future I can rejoin the human race as a normal person. Then again, maybe not. I have unhealthy compulsions, not everyone can be fixed.

Karen,

Thanks for the kind note and all the help you gave me. I do regret that we won't get to finish those convos we started a few weeks ago. Maybe some other time, but of course the hope is that we will all be in such a better place in the future that such convos won't be necessary. Best of luck to you.

Fran,

Thanks to you also for your kind note and for the help you have given me. I now look back at our first convos and realize that I was actually pleading for help but couldn't find my voice. I hope you find the happiness you seek.

GEL

I don't know if you know how much I appreciate the help you gave me, both on and off the board. You are absolutely right in what you said, you were a true friend off the board. You have such strength of character, and such an obvious sense of appropriate boundaries. I know that when I do get my strength up, I can look to you as a model of how a friendship between man and woman can be a good thing for all involved. I hope I can one day have that same ability to form strong boundaries, and can maybe help someone else through example the way you helped me. Best wishes to you.

NOPkins

You are one of the first people I talked to off the board. I will say that I felt kinda weird after I told you stuff that I have never told anyone else and our contact ceased shortly thereafter. I thought you had decided I was just too weird and not worth the effort of trying to save. I guess I now see that for someone as in-tune with the mistakes I am making I probably was giving off major clues then. Maybe you were the first person to see the road I was on, and knew that the only way I would ever wake up was to hit bottom. I do respect you and MrsNOPs so much.

HD

I hope you will forgive me "workout buddy" but I'm afraid I'm going to have to go on the DL for awhile. I do see so many things that both of us have in common, I know we can help each other. It is my hope that one day you and I both can look back on our lives and thank each other for shoulder to lean on. But I've got some work to do first. I'll be back and maybe we can get a formal routine going. It works best that way, for both physical and emotional workouts.

Lou,

I want to thank you for taking the initiative to come to my aid, even when I didn't realize I needed it. You are a true friend and a great person. Maybe like others have said, helping me will give you a good memory of how you can be an effective fixer at anything you choose to fix. I hope the best for you.

GGB

Thanks so much for the kind notes you sent me, and for being so understanding and supportive. It really sounds like you are on the right track. One thing I do look forward to is coming back here and trying to follow in those footsteps a bit. Be well.

Lil

I don't know what to say. I'm sure you feel contempt or perhaps some other negative emotions toward me. I remember at one time you called me a "prince." Maybe sometime in the future I can earn that appellation again.

Chrissy

I don't know where you have been, but I hope you are well. I appreciate all the help you gave me too. I hope things are going better for you, or will get better soon.

HP

I do miss having you around flinging those 2x4s so effectively at me. I think you were probably the only one who had the patience to tell me what to do 20 times in a row. I guess that was foreshadowing. I hope you are doing well.

Stig

I haven't heard from you in awhile, and I do worry about you. You are such a strong personality, and helped me see things from a unique perspective, but I could also hear the pain behind it all. I hope you are doing ok.

BF

Dude, words cannot express how much help you have given me, and how sorry I am that I didn't take every bit of your advice and follow it. I had to learn things the hard way. I do hope you know that all the lessons you taught be about how to be a man are in there. I am hopeful that when I am able to shed all the crap I have burdened myself with, the things you have taught me will make me be the person I always should have been.

LFL

There is nothing I can say to make up for what I have done. I will just say I am sorry, I hope you can forgive and forget me, for your own sake. There are plenty of guys out there better than me, including your H. And you deserve to have a good M.

Sorry if I forgot anyone, but my brain is still not functioning 100%.

A good friend of mine gave me some advice last night about how to proceed. The list that NOPkins gave me should be done in order. I am getting on medications this morning (Drs. appt in a few minutes so gotta wrap this up), and all contact with OW ceases. Then when it is clear that I am approaching this from a position of strength and not of emotion riddled guilt, I will tell my W everything. Then I will have the strength to support her if that is what she wants. What I don't want to do is go into the situation and end up being so emotional myself that she can't express whatever she needs to express. I hope that makes sense.

I am going now. I will probably check to see if anyone responded, just to do you all the courtesy of taking the time to read what you write to me, but I won't be posting for awhile. Be well all.

Chrome

If we're confessing online/offline romances, I guess I better 'fess up.

Oh, CeMar, will you ever forgive me?! You're the best I ever had! <sob> I wish I knew how to quit you!

Hairdog, King of Inappropriate Timing (and Place and Manner) of Humor.

Chrome,

Know that we do wish you well, and want you to be well. Please do take the advice that many of us (and other of your friends) have offered....we truly do wish you to be happy & healthy.

The road you are going to travel is a tough one, but necessary to get to where you want to be. Here's hoping that this time next year you can look back and see how far you've come and how much happier you are in your M.

GEL

Chrome,
GOOD LUCK to you. You and your family have a hard road ahead of you, but I have confidence that you can do this. This last post of yours is finally worth responding to..there is no false bravado, no guilt-ridden emotion (as you described it), none of the weirdness that has been plaguing your thread for a while. I think we all knew something was up but couldn't figure it out. LFL didn't have a current thread so I have to admit that her presence in this web of deceit was somewhat of a surprise, though not completely since the seeds of this mess have been sown since day 1. Too much flirting and off-board convos between two people who are already struggling...that's a recipe for disaster.

I don't think it's true that you have to avoid female friends but you will have to reframe your idea of what a female friend IS.
I do not have male friends in the same way that I did when I was single. I do this because I don't trust myself entirely. Truly, I love men and could find a reason to fall in love with just about anyone. Do I trust myself to have a male friend who was a confidante that I spent a lot of time with, one on one? Oh heavens no. I'm not saying that other people can't pull this off without a hitch--I'm just not one of them.

I suppose what I am trying to say to you is this: Get real with yourself. Know yourself. Make your plan of attack accordingly. Stop looking to the rest of the world to get a clue about what YOU should do.

Get help with your addictions before they trash your life.

We're pulling for you; stop by and let us know how it's going.

HP

Chrome,

Thinking about your situation and your “confession,” I guess the thing that bother me is not the fact that you continued the EA with this woman or that you started up another EA. I think these are to be expected in some way, sort of like an alcoholic falling off the wagon every now and then. I see your problems as so deep within your FOO, so deeply ingrained into you very nature that I would think the pull of temptation to be very strong. What I find completely disingenuous is the reason why you are “coming clean.” Had you come to your senses, taken in the advice so many were giving you and others on this board, been true to yourself, you would have (or at least should have) realized that stopping any contact with any other woman is something you MUST do, from an intellectual and logical standpoint. That does not mean you will still feel the attraction to her, and even possible regress. But if this were to ever occur, your conscience would know what you are doing is wrong and the guilt would kick in.

You seem to be coming clean only because the other woman is coming clean. This is not your decision, it is hers, She is making up her mind for you. You are just along for the ride and now crying over your hopeless situation. Your situation will always be hopeless until YOU decide to grow up and take responsibility for yourself. You are still playing the victim, assuming you are fated to be thrown back and forth by the wind, at the mercy of other, and hoping someone will notice your plight, take pity on you and give you the compassion and love you have always longed for. That may be a reasonable expectation for a kid, but your days of expecting that kind of treatment are long over. It is time you become responsible like an adult.

If you want this affair to end, then take a stand and make that decision on your own. Do not depend on the other woman to decide for you. I think that may be why you started up the second EA. With this line of thought, what is to keep you from finding a third?

I’ve tried to confront you on your FOO and how the ghosts from your past haunt you today and affect your marriage. You gave me glancing attention. Compare your responses to the introspection others had done (look at the self disclosure Happy Giant has done, or Mojo). As long as you dodge these nasty issues, you will be held captive by them.

Now to my other point. I am not sure what your purpose is in confessing all to your wife. Be sure in your mind that this is not another ploy to skip out on confronting yourself. You say you are coming clean and need to lay everything at her feet, to be at the mercy of her judgment. I understand the theory behind Harley’s radical honesty, but I think that is only valid if you have truly made a mental commitment to yourself (and not necessarily anyone else) on what your path will be.

Otherwise I fear it may be nothing more than a passive aggressive way of taking all your problems and shifting them onto your wife’s shoulders. By confessing, you may feel like you come clean. You can relax since you’ve un-shouldered your burden. Now it is all on her to deal with and she will feel like you’ve just unloaded a ton of bricks on her. Don’t expect any reaction out of her other than sheer anger and hatred.

That said, I do not think your confession to her can be delayed much either (though a week or so to get your head in order should not make much difference).

That you have played this game for so long, and twisted it around in so many ways that I think you really need to level with yourself on whether you are just setting up another more sophisticated martyrdom pity pot. From what I am seeing so far in your posts to everyone here, in spite of your apologies, I can not see anything different from what you have said so many times in the past. Hopefully your counselor can get to the bottom of this. I also think LFL’s comment that this has some strong roots in compulsion makes a lot of sense. Just remember that OCD is usually just another defense mechanism.

HP, Chrome,
I agree with the danger of having an opposite sex friend as a confidante, especially when both of you are in troubled relationships. If you do go there, you should look at each and every communication and honestly assess whether you would share it with your S. If not, then you shouldn't be sharing it with someone else, and it should be a red flag telling you that you are getting into an innappropriate relationship. I know it can feel good to be talking to a F who empathizes with your pain, and that can be very alluring. An EA can sneak up on you that way when you aren't really expecting it, and next thing you know you can't wait to hear from her etc. Keep applying the would I share this communication with my S test on every single communication you have to keep you off the slippery slope. Oh, and point out the slope to your friend if you see them sending you stuff that you wouldn't share with your S as well, KWIM?

HP, perhaps I am a little different than other guys. I don't bond well with guys for whatever reason. Maybe its my lack of interest in sports or something, or maybe it goes back to before I was married and was looking for an R, I don't know. My closest friendships have all been with F's, but I've also become somewhat sensitized to MrsGGB's feelings regarding having F friends, so I've been very careful to stay away from the slope (even when sorely tempted when I was feeling at my lowest in my R with MrsGGB).

Chrome, like I said before, we will miss you. Godspeed my friend. You've got a rough road ahead of you, but I am confident you can manage it and that when you do you'll come out the other end a much stronger person.

Edited to add:
Chrome, I don't mean to be implying that having F friends is a good idea in your case, in fact, until you get past whatever drives you to seek out these EA's you should probably AVOID developing any friendships with women. It may very well be that you need to deal with it cold turkey the way a recovering alcoholic has to deal with his addiction.

Chrome,
When you e-mailed me you said you hoped you still had "at least one friend on the board" implying that I might be it. You have many friends on this board Chrome. You have the right kind of friends here, the ones who tell you what you NEED to hear not what you want to hear.

Since you agreed with my use of the term adoration when I suggested that that is what you are seeking I will expound further.

Adoration is the love an infant feels towards and from its mother. Or it should do in a healthy mother/baby relationship. If there is any form of interruption to this process then the infant is left feeling a craving for adoration. Judging by what you have told us of your FOO I feel that this is highly likely to have been the case for you. Adult romantic relationships mirror the growth of childhood. The early heady days mirror the adoration phase of infanthood. The terrible twos mirror the early separation/teething problems apparent in most Rs, if the R settles down from this there usually follows a calm and fairly matter of fact period (similar to middle childhood). Then we get to adolescence, I believe most of us on this board are in the "adolescent" phase of our Rs. Romance junkies like yourself Chrome are craving the early stage adoration phase of a relationship. Do you want to remain forever an infant?

I hope the C and MC stuff goes well.

All the best

Fran