To my frind Lou.....thank you so much for your insight. In a lot of ways it helps me to know that men are not as shallow or hard hearted as I try to make them....lol. In other ways, it kind of hurts. What I mean by that is that I think I needed to believe (as some others had said) that the OM had moved on to another woman and wasn't having withdrawal pains from the EA with me. To think that, made the temptation to contact him again less powerful. In some ways, I needed to believe that he did not have true feelings for me.....but in some ways, I guess I wanted to believe that I had meant something more than just a possible new sex partner. I hated to think that he was willig to see me risk everything for a couple of hours with him. Anyway, that is all in the past.
To try to answer DomR's question about how to stop doing it. I can't answer for others.....only myself. With me, it was a spiritual conviction that caused a continual conflict in my soul. I could not go to church and do the job of teaching Sunday school when I knew that I was trying to live a "double life" in some ways. It just wasn't something I personally could do. It began to consume me. I went for weeks on end that I would miss church simply b/c I couldn't mix the two lifestyles. A lot of people don't like to get off into religious stuff, but as crazy as it may sound...with this partiuclar subject....Church & family has always been my life. That was why I would probably have been the last person in town that people would have suspected doing what I did. Never in a million years would I ever thought I would be tempted to get involved in what I did. It was very subtle and before I knew it, I was hooked. But then, I couldn't let my H know and I had to make up excuses to stay home from church. However, he knew more than I thought he did......and so did my D.
I know I am saying things that I've said several times before. I look back at how I was then and I can't believe that was me! How could I have been ready and willing to sacrifice my entire life that I had lived for........to be content to have my evenings with strangers over the internet???? Of course, at the time, I was into an EA and was wanting to be free and have my own place in order to have a PA and also continue making my computer contacts. Wow! Unbelievable! I think somebody on drugs could look back during that time and wonder the same thing....how could they have been that blind and stupid.
Something in a woman's life has to be more important to her than the "feel good" fix she receives from her contacts over the internet. Something has to get her attention that will cause her to see what she is doing and that it is wasting her time and energy. It may be psudeo "fun" at the time.....but in the long run of things....it sure isn't worth it. Or, God forbid, something happens like it did to me when my grown D told me she knew what was going on. That pretty well did it up for me right then. I had to either stop doing what I was or else choose it over my family and them know what I was doing. I couldn't live with that. I had been struggling with my conscious, so all of it together helped to put me back on the right track. My role in the church placed a lot of pressure on me so it would have been very difficult for me to change my lifestyle and remain here. I probably would have had to move away....which of course, I could not afford to do. So that is one reason I tell men not to make it easier for the wives to move out of the house. At first, I had to risign myself to the fact I could not afford to live on my own income and that my H would not help support me. I also knew he would not allow me to return to him once I left and I knew it would turn my family inside out b/c my H and I were always seen as the "stong ones" eveyone leaned upon. I also realized that if I left my M that it would disappoint and hurt ao many people that respected us and looked at us a "roll models". Don't mean to leave the impression we are that "important", but it would hurt more people than just me and my H.
I think when I finally stopped to think that over and weigh it out, then I knew I could not be selfish enough to just think about what I wanted.
Well, I've rambled on and on. Hope it may have helped somebody a little bit.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
