we got home last night and I sent the kids in the house. I aske dhim to call this girl and tell her that it was over between them. He refused saying that I was going to leave him anyway so what did it matter. I asked him again- he still refused so I asked him to leave and he did. I
I too think this could possibly be an addiction. But it's not my area...so just a thought...and that is after reading the article Breton put a link to on a thread last night. Below I will put the link and an excerpt from the article--it's rather long.
I see him needing a lot of reassurance--A LOT. This is indicative in his fear that you will just leave him anyway.
You need to lay off from pressuring about the affair--no asking him to contact her...and if you do ask...stop when he says okay or no. If he says he will, but doesn't...stay quiet. It is not your job. He needs to handle it. So, he is afraid you will leave him. Then when he refused to do as you requested...you sent him away.
His fear came true.
Quote:
I wanted to call her but did not. I did send her a myspace message telling her that he told me about them.
Absolutely No contacting the OW. Stay out of it. It's his mess...he needs to clean it up at his won pace.
And by the way...I LOVE this OW. She's the ebst sort for an LBS. She's doing everything wrong if she wants to have apermanent relationship with your husband. Sit back and watch the movie...cause this is a good one. She's over the top. I had one too--faked prgnancy, threatened indirect suicide...I felt so relieved that he picked such a doosey!
You can win this one easily--if you sit back and stop fighting and trying to compete...cause there's no contest.
I've pasted a few different excerpts below. Below . A link follows
Quote:
Q: Do affairs ever serve a positive function, not to excuse any of the damage they do? Dr. G: Affairs are often a chance for people to try out new behaviors, to dress in a different costume, to stretch and grow and assume a different role. In a long-term relationship, we often get frozen in our roles. When young couples begin at a certain level of success and go on to achieve all kinds of things, the new person sees them as they've become, while the old person sees them as they were. The unfortunate thing is that the way a person is different in the affair would, if incorporated into the marriage, probably make their spouse ecstatic. But they believe they're stuck; they don't know how to create that opportunity for change within the marriage. A woman who was sexually inhibited in marriage, perhaps she married young and had no prior partners may find her sexuality in an affair, but her husband would probably be delighted to encounter that new self. Q: How do you handle this? Dr. G: After an affair, I do not ask the question you would expect. The spouse always wants to know about "him or her". "What did you see in her that you didn't see in me?" Or, "what did you like about him better?" One man asked, "was it that he had a bigger penis?" I always ask about "you": "What did you like about yourself in that other relationship?" How were you different? And, of the way that you were in that other relationship, what would you like to bring back so that you can be the person you want to be in your primary relationship? How can we foster that part of you in this relationship? Q: That's a surprising question. How did you come to know that's the question to ask? Dr. G: There is an attraction in the affair, and I try to understand what it is. Part of it is the romantic projection: I like the way I look when I see myself in the other person's eyes. There is positive mirroring. An affair holds up a vanity mirror, the kind with all the little bulbs around it; it gives a nice rosy glow to the way you see yourself. By contrast, the marriage offers a make-up mirror; it magnifies all your wrinkles and pores, every little flaw. When someone loves you despite the fact that they can see all your flaws, that is a reality-based love. In the stories of what happened during the affair, people seem to take on a different persona, and one of the things they liked best about being in that relationship was the person they had become. The man who wasn't sensitive or expressive is now in a relationship where he is expressing his feelings and is supportive. Q: Can those things be duplicated in the marriage? Dr. G: That's one of the goals, not to turn the betrayed spouse into the affair partner, but to free the unfaithful spouse to express all the parts of himself he was able to experience in the affair. I see a lot of men who are married to very competent women and having affairs with very weak women. They feel: "this person needs me." They put on their red cape and do a lot of rescuing. They feel very good about themselves. That makes me sad, because I know that even though their partner may be extremely competent, she wants to be stroked too. She wants a knight in shining armor. Perhaps she hasn't known how to ask for it, or the ways she's asked have pushed him away.
Q: What do people seek in an affair partner? Dr. G: Either we choose somebody very different from our partner, or we choose somebody like our partner used to be, a younger version. A woman married to a really sweet guy who helps with the dishes, who is very nurturing and very secure, may at some point see him as boring and get interested in the high-achieving, high-energy man who may even be a bit chauvinistic. But if she's married to the man with the power and the status, then she's interested in the guy who is sensitive and touchy-feely, who may not be as ambitious. Q: Is this just the nature of attraction? Dr. G: It has to do with the fact that people really want it all. Probably the only way to get it all is to be in more than one relationship at the same time. We have different parts of ourselves. The other flip-flop in choice of affair partner reflects the fact that the marriage often represents a healing of our family wounds. Somebody who lacked a secure attachment figure in their family of origin chooses a mate who provides security and stability. It's a healthy, resilient part of ourselves that seeks that balancing. But after we've mastered that, we often want to go back and find somebody like that difficult parent and make that person love us. There is a correlation between the nature of the attachment figure and the affair partner; the person is trying to master incomplete business from childhood. As a result, some people will choose an affair partner who is difficult, temperamental, or unpredictable. Under those circumstances, the unfaithful partner is often caught in a triangle.
Q. What is happening in those relationships that are parental or in other ways not equal? Dr. G: Sometimes there is an over-functioning spouse and an under-functioning spouse. One partner takes on a lot of responsibility and then resents it. The more a person puts energy into something and tries to work on it, the more committed to the relationship that person is. The other partner, who is only semi-involved in the relationship, is freer to get involved in an affair, because they're not as connected to the marriage. This is interesting because the popular notion is that the person who has the affair wasn't getting enough at home. The reality is that they weren't giving enough at home. Q. How do you handle that? Dr.G: In rebuilding that relationship, more equity has to be created. The issue isn't what can the betrayed spouse do to make the partner happy, it's what can the unfaithful spouse do to make their partner happy. In research and in practice, my colleague Tom Wright, Ph.D., and I have observed that when you compare who does more, who is more understanding, who is more romantic, who enjoys sex more, the affair is almost always more equitable than the marriage. Usually, the person was giving more, more time, more attention, more compliments, in the affair than in the marriage. If they can come back and invest in the marriage what they were doing in the affair, then they'll feel more. There is some research showing that people are more satisfied in equitable relationships. When relationships are not equitable, even the over-benefitted partners are not as satisfied as those in equitable relationships. Certainly the under-benefited partners are not satisfied.
