Mojo. The life force. The essence.

[Thinker]

... her "plan" ... was to keep the D secret in her mind while pursuing Signore Schmuckatelli,...

Her friends ... would know. ... She would know.

Of course, I wouldn't know.

She doesn't get how that hurts, either, incidentally. How the idea that she'd let me be ignorant, thinking I was married, would be hurtful to a person -- let alone this Person.

I understand this and feel this myself - completely.

I was confused by it. I tried to understand why the fact that my W had been planning, and might still or again be secretly planning a D and an escape to an OM hurt more than the idea of D itself. It did not make sense to me, and I wrote about it on my thread saying "I am more afraid of betrayal than I am of D"

And then something in "Passionate Marriage" helped me to understand that my hurt was real and why it hurt so much. I am paraphrasing here, but Schnarch pointed out that when one spouse lies and keeps plans or actions (or an A) secret, then they are taking away the other spouses freedom and right to think, feel and act. In effect, they are saying "I am important and have the right to do things that are in my interest, but you are not important and do not have the same rights or even the right to react to what I am doing"

And this is why, when my W spews and says "I don't love you" and "I want to leave" and "I am not attracted to you" it doesn't really hurt. I even got over it when she expressed her feelings for OM. I have accepted that. I realize that she feels that way, and that it is her version of reality, and she has every right to feel it, but that it does not define me. But....

When my W lies to me, when I realized that she had been carrying on an EA with OM for some time without ever even telling me she was unhappy, when I found letters where she talked about her desire / plans to get D'd by the end of the year that were written before we had even started talking about any of this ---- NOW THAT HURT!! It hurt badly.

You are completely right SP. What hurts is the realization that your spouse has so little regard for you that they don't even see you as another person - just a resource to be used for a while during the planning phase, and then a barrier to be manipulated past.

We all have to pick ourselves up after the blow that this realization delivers to our ego's. I know I sure did. I also think this is a barrier that we all have to set - "I matter and you are not going to do that to me!"

I think you're doing great.